Part 7: The Ostian Revolt or, Levels Full Of Dreck

Chapter 7: The Ostian Revolt or, Levels Full Of Dreck










Ostia, the largest and most populous city in Lycia, is to become a battlefield...



You know I did say I was going to bench Dorothy but on the other hand she was one of the people who didn't disappoint me terribly last level so I'm going to give her a chance to prove herself. Besides, it's not as if I have a lot of people to plug up the holes now that everyone who shit themselves last time is standing in the corner of shame thinking very hard about what they've done.



Then, plot. I spent a while thinking, and came to the conclusion that there's nothing I can do to change these guys' portraits that would make them better than they already are.

So I didn't. The end.

Yes, sire. The townspeople are no trouble. But the Ilian mercenaries that Hector hired still refuse to join us.

"Something about Hector coming back from the grave and smiting them if they go back on their word."

What more do they want? We already said we'd pay more!

"They said it wouldn't cover the protagonist insurance, sire."

Ilia's mercenary knights are famously loyal.


But General Narcian will arrive soon! If we don't have Ostia under our control by then, he'll never take us seriously!

Y-yes, sire.

Lilina may make for a valuable bargaining chip with the mercenaries... If her life is in danger, they should surrender. But that must be a last resort. First we must attempt to beat them into submission.

Or maybe you should, you know, use that one advantage you actually have? Before we show up and kill you all? Just a suggestion.

The wyvern riders Bern sent us should prove invaluable!

They're flying enemies.

Debias, I want the mercenaries pacified and the castle gate secured. I will be inside the castle readying our defenses.



Legance, like Narcian, runs off instead of helping kill us. I'm sure we'll run into a clever opponent eventually.



And as for Roy and his boys...

Quite a large majority, I'm afraid. They've forgotten their fealty to Lord Hector.

I shall have to beat it back into them, then!

They all simply gave in to Bern because they're afraid. It's a disgrace, I tell you.

Is that so...

If I was retranslating, I'd probably have made this "I see" or something, because "is that so" is something that pops up a lot in translations from Japanese.

But it's not all bad news, Lord Roy! There's a band of mercenaries from Ilia that wish to join us to stop the rebels.

With all the hype these mercs are getting, they had better be fucking amazing, I'm just saying.



Oh, yes. They signed a contract with Lord Hector to fight Bern alongside Ostia.

They could be a great help. But do they know Lord Hector has passed away? Isn't their contract void now that he's gone?

I would have thought so, too, Lord Roy. They told me themselves however that they heard of Lord Hector's passing. They're still eager to fight with us.

They're only mercenaries. Why would they go so far?

Ilia is a frozen land with a harsh climate so the land is very infertile. And so, mercenary contracts are a major source of income in Ilia. Ilian mercenaries are said to never betray their employers, no matter what. It seems that's true indeed.

Then they should be powerful allies.

I agree! Fortune is still with us!
But... the mercenary I spoke to also had some bad news. He said one of the three Wyvern Generals is headed here with a legion of wyvern riders. Should they aid the rebels, our chences of victory will slip through our fingers.

Roy... What are you going to do?

...The Kingdom of Eturia might help us.

Eturia?! Is it possible?

General Cecilia, Mage General of Eturia, was my teacher in tactics at Ostia. I feel she may join forces with us if we ask.

I object, Lord Roy! If we have Eturia solve this Lycian matter, they will never take us seriously again!

Yes, I know that might happen... But this is a matter of life or death for Lycia. We must ask for help, for if we don't, Lycia as we know it may become just a memory.

...Lord Roy.

But we must ask quickly! I've already penned a letter ot General Cecilia. Merlinus, I need you to send the letter to her right away.

...Yes, Lord Roy! You are probably right. I shall send it this instant.

With any luck, she'll make it in time.
Get ready for combat, soldiers! We will retake Ostia!

Roy continues to be a perfectly reasonable person. Roy is cool, screw y'all haters.



This isn't a huge map, but there's a lot to do. The three topmost buildings are vendors and armouries, the one right above our starting position is an arena, and all the rest are regular houses, about half of them visitable for goodies. Better yet, there seems to be no brigands among the enemies, so we can just finish the battle and visit the houses in peace and quiet once we're done instead of having to split up and rush houses before brigands destroy them.



In a nice case of gameplay and story making sense together, all the generics but the wyvern riders are listed as Rebel in their stat screens...



...while the riders are Bern. Effort! You'll also notice this guy has a goodie. It will be mine.


A knight serving Ostia. Supports the rebellion.

More like Dubious, am I right?

Debias really doesn't have a whole lot going for him that Ruud didn't also have back in chapter two, and we're much stronger now than we were then. He does come with a Spear, however, which is a javelin but better.

It also only has 15 uses, so we could probably just park Wolt here and let the problem solve itself, but we'll see if we can come up with a more interesting solution.



Well, let's get started. Allen chips away a little, and Deke puts that armourslayer to use.



Did I show off the mercenary's attack at some point? Well if so, I'm showing it again. It's cool.



What's not cool is he's forced to waste a use on this asshat who attacks him next turn. Most of the enemies are quite happy to come to us, so we could potentially just sit down where we start until they're all dead. That's boring, though!



I'm getting good use out of that killing edge. Someone should be able to finish this guy easily and get a load of easy exp next turn.


Let's join them and quess this shameful little rebellion!

Not before these two pop out of one of the houses, though.

Uh-huh.

Wait, where's Noah?

Uhhh, I think he went to the arena a little while ago. He said he's coaching some girl in swordplay.

Noah, a coach? That's not like him... Has he made a little girlfriend, I wonder? Ha ha. Well, no matter. He can catch up with us later.

Uh-huh.

Time for action. Move out.

And they'll be moving out, all right, because they're green and unlike Clarine, these guys will be interacting with the enemy.

Guess we're on a timer.


A mercenary knight from Ilia. Sleeping is his passion.

So we have Dreck Treck, who is a cavalier, in case you spectacularly fucked up one of yours.

He's not great, and he'll probably never be great, but least he has more strength than Lance at this point. His growths are HP 85, Str 40, Skl 30, Spd 35, Lck 50, Def 30, Res 5 - which makes him generally worse than the Christmas Cavaliers. Notably, he's matching Lance (the weaker of the two) for Str but losing to both in terms of skill, speed, and res, but he has a lot of luck and a little more def.

Actually I should probably just have renamed him Dreck. Anyway, with him out of the way, we move on to his boss...


The lord of Edessa. Leads the Ilian mercenary knights.

...who used to be a paladin at one point but is now only a lowly cavalier with an additional ten levels to grow and a guaranteed boost if we do care to promote him at some point.

"But vilkacis, this is cheating!"

Yes. Yes, it is, and if this is the first time you've noticed... read chapter 1 first, you doorknob. Frankly this isn't even going to do much for the guy because what he'd actually need to be Not Shit is to have like, 10-20% higher growths in everything except maybe HP. Let's have them: HP 75, Str 25, Skl 20, Spd 20, Lck 15, Def 30, Res 15.

...yeah. Vanilla Jerrot is not much better than Marcus, and he doesn't even have cool hair to compensate. Dropping this guy ten levels and a promotion does move him a few steps from Instantly Benched Forever territory towards Could Maybe Possibly See Use Once Or Twice, I Don't Know, If I Feel Like It territory - but only a few, and not big ones either.

Seriously, he has no excuse for being so shitty. At least people like Wolt and Marcus fill a couple of deployment slots you wouldn't otherwise have anyone to put in for a couple of chapters. This guy has bench warmer written all over him.

Come to think of it, I should probably have done that, too.



So anyway, Shanna gets that knight Rutger softened up.



She would also be getting benched so fucking hard if I had even one other flier.



Rutger seems to be doing better.



I could complain about this, but strength is exactly what he needs, so I shan't.



I thought I'd give Sue a shot, but she misses it. Allan has to clean up for her.



His other half is on the other side of the map doing much the same.



Except for the bit where Allan actually gains strength on occasion.



77 hit isn't that great...



...nor is the level he gets from landing two hits, but hey, strength.



Chad needs exp too. I'm sure he'll be



fine



OW



But pain = gain, at least in this case. And no one else is in range to-



shitshitshit

...

Let's move on.



One of the wyverns parks his ass on the arena and stabs Dorothy through the kidneys. It's the one without the red gem, so we can kill him any time we like.



Dreck and Parrot do their usual NPC things. They can at least survive a round or two of this, so I'm not too worried.

On the next turn,


I need to get going, Fir.

...something starts happening in the arena.

Thank you for helping me, Sir Noah.

Of course. I sure was surprised when you came up to me though. Not many people would challenge someone to a match so quickly like that.

I-I'm sorry, Sir Noah. I'd never fought in the arena before...

If you'd asked anyone else, you'd be dead now. You need to look your opponent over carefully before choosing a fight.

And I must have the humility to surrender if it appears I'll lose.

...Are you trying to tutorial at me in the middle of a cutscene?

Exactly.

Oh.

You can always get your money back, but don't throw your life away.

You're right! Thank you!

What will you do now? Will you stay here and continue practicing the sword?

No. I'm going to the Western Isles.

The Western Isles? Why?

They're constructing a new mine, so there are many new workers headed there. Miners are strong, so it's no doubt an ideal place to find new opponents to challenge.

Because knowing how to hit a wall really hard with a pickaxe totally makes you a qualified swordfighter.

Fir seems kinda .

And besides...

Yes?

The Western Isles is where my mother first met my father. She's passed on, but at my age she traveled around the world training herself.

So that's it... You surprise me again.

Why?

I thought all you wanted was to become strong. I didn't realize you were following in your mother's footsteps. You do have a cute side after all!

You're gonna get splinters. And you're going to deserve it.

...Sir Noah! Please don't tease me!



Ha ha ha ha ha!



Fir runs away and Noah parks himself under Wolt there.



First order of business, getting rid of the bloody big lizard. I let Sue soften him up, and then Dorothy shoots him dead. Speed is good for her, so I'm happy enough with this level.



Then we can have Roy talk to Noah and recruit him.

Sure am. Can I help you?

My name is Roy. I lead the Lycian Army.

Oh! I heard about you... I'm supposed to take orders from you now.

Are you sure that's all right?

What do you mean?

Don't you have to check in with your commander...?

He told me we're joining the Lycian Army. That's enough for me.

But did he mean like this?

He's having a relapse! God damn it Roy.

This is a battlefield. There's no time to check everything with the commander. As long as I'm following orders, and I am, I can play it by ear.

Noah seems like a rad dude, though.

I see. Thanks for the help.

And what help it is.


A mercenary knight from Motavia. Lacks social skills.

I expect like maybe one person to get this and either way yes I went there because it beats getting saddled (haha get it) with another freakin' cavalier I'd inevitably bench forever.

Noah's growths are HP 75, Str 30, Skl 45, Spd 30, Lck 40, Def 30, Res 10, which is... actually even worse than Treck. Except it's 60 Mag and Res now because fuck it, if I'm cheating I might as well do it properly.



Time to take care of that gaping chest wound.



It's most important to get rid of the enemies that will be pushing Dreck and Parrot's shit in, so we do. Meanwhile, Deke gets to play around with the ones on the left.



Allan weakens and Lugh finishes off one of the cavaliers, and I'm suddenly very glad I hacked in a shaman.



A rebel vulnerarying up is a rebel not murdering NPCs I want to recruit.



There's quite enough trying to do that, but one less now.



Thunderbolt and lightning, very very frighting - not.

Rutger promptly gets shot by an archer while he's smugging it up.



There are two of these guys, and they both have ranged healing. I want those staves, damn it!



Jerrot goes for a mage. Fortunately, his ex-paladin Res is pretty good, so he lives.



Treck isn't doing quite so well. I don't want to see him suicide, so we'll need to arrange for a safer environment for him next turn.



Let's see what Noah can do.



Better than this random archer, at least!



Rutger handles the mage, and we've eliminated every threat to Treck's dumb behind.



Next turn, we're in position to lure out the second y-burn.



Treck runs away to heal...



...and Jerrot, as I was hoping, runs up to stab a priest.



Yoink!



You too.



And there we go.



And then I RNG abuse until Dorothy can kill this fucker. Wolt could do it, but he's level 10 and she needs it more.



Hey, what's this?



Oh, hello, Dorothy.

Where were you, Brother Saul? You always wander off without saying anything...

It is not "wandering off", Dorothy. I was dilligently spreading word of our church a tthe villages on the way here.

...Somehow I don't think you were doing your job.

Don't be ridiculous. I found a young maiden being harassed by a very rude man.

You mean yourself?

Please, Dorothy, have some faith in me. Anyway, I drove the man off and rescued the maiden. I acted exactly as a holy man ought to.

Really? You're not exactly very strong. How did you do it?

I went to the man and clung to him, crying,



......

The man fled with great haste.
The maiden, however, was also gone by the time I looked back.



I knew I liked these two for a reason

...but this means I'm stuck using them forever, doesn't it...? Otherwise, it would be such a waste.



Anyway, we've pretty much cleared the board. There's only one priest left, and I have plans for him. The dot on the lower right is an archer who's been sitting there sleeping or something this entire time.



My plans were foiled.

Chad just steals the vulnerary instead, you can't have too many of those.



Shanna coughs up Jerrot so Roy can paint him blue.



That's me. And you are?

My name is Roy. I lead the army that's fighting the rebels.

You? Impressive... I expected someone older.

I'm here because Lord Hector asked me to be.

Lord Hector... We've lost a great man. He was a true warrior.

We have to retake Ostia. For Lord Hector! And for Lilia...

I concur. We'll offer what help we can.

Thank you for the assistance.

Save the thanks for after we've retaken the castle. Come! We must concentrate on the enemy now!

Right!

And that only leaves one.



Meanwhile Lugh tries to wring some exp out of this priest. He has a brand new fire tome he can start using now instead, so no worries there.



Even more now.



Chad kills the priest. Nice.



Lance drops Treck.

Hmmm? Yeah, I guess so.

My name is Roy. I lead the Lycian Army.

This is the third time he says "My name is Roy" this update. Thought you might like to know.

Oh, I'll take your orders from now on then.

What? Just like that?

Hm?

You don't have to check in with your commander first?

There's enough dialogue to transcribe in this game without you assholes repeating everything!

Oh. Nah. He already said we're joining the Lycian Army.

But still...

Really, it's fine. This is a battle. There's no time to check every little thing with the commander. It's not as though I'm going against his orders anyway.

...All right.

Three down.



And now we just have the boss and the houses to worry about.


It fires arrows much father than a normal bow! Very useful, don't you think? Of course you do. You can have it. I want it to go to good use.

Clarine gets a longbow she can't use from the top-left house. Wolt will be very happy.

Sadly it only has 20 uses, but longbows are fun. They're really the only thing archers get to do that every other dude with a javelin, handaxe, or tome can't do at least as well. 'Course, most archers aren't very good with them. Because archers.



Meanwhile, Deke goes back to the arena for a bit.


Would you like to wager 660 gold? (Yes) Good luck. Don't get yourself killed. Fight 'til defeat, or press the B Button to yield.

MY IMMERSION.



Deke cleaves the enemy from head to... well he cleaves him ok.



Quite lucrative!



Jerrot misses one of his two swings with the steel lance, but it's fine, Shanna kills the archer, and now there's just the boss.

Sue goes to vist the top-right house.


This lance is incredibly effective against such soldiers. There are many horsemen in the rebel army, so use this against them!

She gets a Horseslayer, which does more or less what you'd expect from the name.


The recipe is top secret... Don't ask, because I'm not telling!
What's that? You don't want any? Here, I'll give you a free sample! You won't be disappointed.

Lance gets an elixir from this girl. Why can't we buy her elixirs?! They'd be a lot better than those cheapo vulneraries!



Deke goes to the arena again and kills a pegasus knight. Saul gets this patching him back together. See this, Elen?

...no wait, you can't see it, because you're on the bench. Sorry. Except I'm not sorry at all.



Chad picks the lock to the gate above, just because he can.


What did you say? You're out to restore our former glory? Then please, take this gem... It'll fetch a high price at any store! Just use the money to help Ostia!

Jerrot visits another house for a red gem.


He had all who resisted him killed... I escaped, though. Please take this. It's a Hero crest. Fige this to an experienced hero, and fight to save Ostia...

Shanna visits another for... well, you saw. It'll be a while before we want to use one of those, though.


If you're in fog, you can't attack anything you can't see. This should be helpful if you ever find yourself in that situation.

And Lance visits the bottom-left house for something I'm not sure I really want, because its presence seems rather ominous...



Well, I suppose it couldn't be just that simple.

Heh heh... I want to see the look on their faces when they get hit from behind!

Thanks for the hint.


Here's a staff that can heal injuries from a distance! If Lady Lilina's hurt, please heal her...

They're not here yet though, so Sue hits up another house. Seems I got my Physic staff after all!



We're still not quite done with the houses when the reinforcements come. It's just four cavs...



But what cavs they are!

Fortunately though, we're in quite a good position to let them run straight into the danger zone.



Sadly, Sue can't kill him even with a crit and double. But, she sets up a kill for Dorothy,



...who profits quite nicely! Look sharp, Wolt, you have competition!



Roy breaks out the poking stick.



This is an okay Roy. I am okay with this Roy.



I am less okay with what Rutger gets for killing the third cav.

The fourth dies without anyone getting a level-up.



Lugh thinks he could maybe sneak a hit in on the boss while we're working on the houses and arena.







Run away!



Sending Wolt into the arena probably counts as cheating. I don't care.


I helped him out, and he gave me this sword. Really strange person, but kind... Hm? This is the sword. You can have it! Take good care of it.

Sue gets another Killing edge, which is good, because Rutger's isn't going to last long at this rate.



The new group of enemies is a little tougher than the four cavaliers.



And unlike Rutger, Roy does not dodge lightning. He doesn't need to.



Deke gets this, and doesn't even manage to kill the archer. Deke, you deke.



"Oh, you thought that was bad? LET ME SHOW YOU BAD."

You are so getting replaced by the sorcerer I'm not even supposed to have, you little shit.



Or I could have kept him a cavalier and replaced you instead.



Eh.



Even Wolt gets a not overwhelmingly great level continuing his fun in the arena.


Ergh... I'll not let you pass!

Debias misses, but he doesn't have to hit us to not let us pass, just sit there on the throne.



Noah hits him, though. That's not good for Debias, because it means he won't be sitting on his throne for much longer.



Not much longer at all, really. I was all set to see Deke miss once here, but he decided not to, and hey, that's fine.

General Legance... Please be cautious... These people are... powerful...

So he says, before he dies.



I RNG abused for like five minutes trying to find an arena enemy Shanna can actually beat. It was not worth it.



Fuck this shit, I'm out.



We own this place now.




We still need to break down the castle gate.



They can't do a lot with the graphics, but the movements and what small expression changes they do use can be effective at times.

Speaking of Lady Lilina... What do you think of what Lord Hector said?

You mean about the dragons? They were real, not just myth...

Something they don't do much with is the part where 7 is a prequel to 6 and then they put dragons in it even though the big thing in 6 is everybody going like OH SHIT DRAGONS.

Lord Hector was one of the greatest tacticians in Lycia.

"I'll go in there and beat every motherfucker who gets in the way to death with this axe" is a very effective tactic.

And yet his army was defeated in the blink of an eye...

(I still call hax on this one, by the way.)

Bern's army is perhaps the strongest in Elibe. I say, those wyvern riders were indeed very formidable opponents.

Eh. One stabbed Dorothy. Then she shot him. He was okay I guess.

Of course the wyvern riders must have been difficult enough. But the dragons... I can't even conceive how powerful they must be.
Lord Hector mentioned a weapon that is effective against dragons... I wonder where it's hidden.

I presume it must be one of the legendary weapons.

A remake of this is probably in order, if nothing else so we can get the proper "it was probably Armads, you know, the one Hector himself used the last time the world was about to be destroyed by dragons" instead of this wishy-washy bullshit.

If we can obtain those, we might have a fighting chance against the dragons. But I do wonder what a legendary weapon is doing in Ostia.

Yes, I'm mad.

Perhaps Lady Lilina knows the answer. I'm curious as well.
Oh!
Lord Roy, our men have finished knocking down the gate. We can enter now!


Rescue Lilina, no matter the cost!

But that...



...will have to wait until next time.