Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword Part #41

Part 41: Light

: Should we wait for Lord Athos?

: Lord Athos!

: You're late, Graybeard!

: …Well? Were you successful?

: I was. Use this magic tome.

: What is it?

: A legendary item, Aureola. The strongest light magic, wielded by Saint Elimine herself. With this, we should be able to rend Nergal's dark cloak and do him much harm. And these, too, have been infused with magic that makes them more effective against Nergal. Durandal for Eliwood. And for Hector, Armads.

: It's… I can feel it already… Its power is beyond words.

: Incredible! With this, I know I cannot fail.

: Hm? What blade is this?

: A spirit-inhabited sword, the partner of the Mani Katti. This is the Sol Katti. It's not a legendary item, but its blade contains much power.

: Thank you!

: Unn… I sense tremendous power. …What could it be? I feel something really odd.

: He should have lost most of his henchmen in that last battle. But… Mm. I read energy, too… if only a little. Nils is right. The sense of it is different than before. Brace yourselves. He is…formidable!

: We understand. Let's go, everyone!

: Lord Athos spoke the truth about Nergal… Average men cannot hope to stand against him. Ordinary weapons hold no power against him. Those who go with us… They must be chosen carefully.

And it's finally time to put an end to this. Light can be a bitch and a half if you're unlucky, unprepared, or both, but as long as you know what's coming, it's quite manageable. So, preparations. First, this is Eliwood's story (and more importantly, he didn't turn out terrible), so let's let him be the badass the game is halfheartedly trying to let him be.

First, he's going to get another Body Ring and the Talisman we got last chapter.

Next, Durandal. It's an incredibly powerful weapon that makes Eliwood even stronger, so it's very tempting to go all Durandal all the time. The problem is its weight; without any boosts, it'll give Eliwood a 7 speed penalty, which makes him mediocre at best, unusable at worst depending on how he turned out. However, since we pumped him with two Body Rings, that penalty is dropped to a much more manageable 3 speed. Still not enough to double all the enemies he'd like to, but very usable.

Armads: Because if there's one thing this Hector needed, it was a legendary weapon with which to kick even more ass. Much like Durandal, it's strong and heavy as shit, but Hector's promoted Con of 15 means he only takes a 3 speed penalty from the word go.

Did I mention that it gives him an extra five defense on top of his already ludicrous defense? Because it totally does. Hector is more or less completely unstoppable by physical units at this point.

Lyn is definitely getting the short end of the stick in terms of weapons. When Athos said "It's not a legendary weapon, but..." he actually meant "This is the best we could scrounge up, cut me some slack, bitch." Sol Katti is less powerful than a run-of-the-mill Silver Sword, gives less of a critical bonus than a Killing Edge, and gives her a massive 8 speed penalty (said Silver Sword from before weighs 8, for reference).

It also gives her a Resistance bonus, but Lyn's resistance is so shitty to begin with that it might as well not do anything. It may be the sister sword to the Mani Katti, but the Mani Katti was crazy useful. This is something you're only going to use because it's the last chapter, so why the fuck not?

Athos is fucking awesome. He comes with his personal tome, Forblaze, as well as Aureola, a legendary S-rank light tome which is promptly given to Lucius. He has an S-rank in all schools of magic, so you can give him literally anything you want and watch the shit unfold.

We have plans for Athos. Oh, do we have plans... Canas is about to be shown how the fuck Luna is supposed to work.

And Oswin? Well, Oswin is enjoying telling the HP cap to go fuck itself. As well as a couple of his other caps, most notably resistance. The Uber Spear finally has a worthy home.

Other than equipment, you can't actually do any pre-battle preparation, so let's get this show on the road, one last time.

: Merlinus… Thank you for everything.

: You're made of sterner stuff than I'd imagined. Thought you'd've fled by now.

: …Sniff sniff… I thought as much. You're not taking me with you…… …Sniff ooh…

: That's disgusting. Cry if you must, but do something about that runny nose. What are we supposed to do? You can't fight, so we can't afford to take you with us.

: Take this and return to Fargus's ship.

: …Wh-What is this, may I ask?

: A letter of introduction. Take this to Ostia, and you'll be able to do good business there. Of course, if we fail in our mission, it's just a worthless slip of paper.

: But… …I must protest! For the rest of my days, I've vowed in my heart to continue serving you both! Please, oh please! Do not abandon me.

: Merlinus…

: Then go get on the boat and pray for our safe return!

: …Please. Have faith in us. Wait for us.

: …Sniff sniff… …I… I under…stand. Until the end of time, my lord. I will wait for you until the end of time. Please…come back… safely… Please!

: Yeah, OK. We're going. Bye.

: We'll be back.

: …Oh, Lord Eliwood… Oh my…

Christ, Hector can be an asshole. "Oh god you're leaving me behind no no" "Yeah whatever, we're leaving now. Go wait on the fucking boat."

And now, the main event.

: Pah…you're here. But you're too late. The gate is already opened. I will claim the mighty quintessence of dragons. I will become stronger and move ever closer to perfection.

: How many lives must you steal before you're satisfied!? And it's not only those who die. What about the ones left behind in pain and sorrow? What about them?

: I am who I am. The pain of others, I do not feel. The sorrow of others does not touch me. Death feeds me. Death pleases me. I am the essence I consume. You fools will become corpses here, because I wish it to be. Rise and come forth, my servants!

: This…

: You seem impressed with my work. Or perhaps it's just that you've seen a familiar face?

: That's… Marquess Laus! And… Those are Black Fang members. What have you done, Nergal?!

: These morphs you see before you, I've given them the abilities and appearances of the people whose essences I used to craft them. Well, that's not entirely true. I've made them far more powerful. This is the ideal plan for hypocrites like you. Especially you, Eliwood. You continue to regret causing harm to anyone, even enemies. However, no matter the reason, once the deed is done, it's done. Whether you enjoy it or not is irrelevant--the result is the same.

: It is not the same! If you feel no horror for taking someone's life… then you…you yourself are not alive!

: Heh heh heh… Your weakness runs deep in you. You can never understand. The concepts of good and evil are devoid of any meaning, any value. These ideas prevent humans from liberating their own strengths. Such foolishness… The ultimate foolishness of the human race!

: You have not stopped to reconsider your ideas at all.

: The same is true of you, Athos. You must see the truth of it! All living creatures take energy from somewhere. We all use it to create, to change it into something better. The knowledge of Arcadia has shown us the road to the ultimate transformation. And yet you will not take that road! Why do you reject the obvious?

: I am not opposed to the quest for power, for greater knowledge. However, that quest must be driven from within. To fuel your quest with the stolen lives of others, this brings not wisdom but abomination.

: Heh heh heh… I remember. I still remember! Those words are unchanged from when you first said them ages back. When you and the dragons conspired to bury me!

: Look at this wound! The wound I took from your magic! It was a mistake. The only person who understood… The man I thought my truest friend… It was a mistake to try and destroy me. Heh heh heh heh… It confirmed some things for me. That trust brings betrayal. That friends bring weakness!

: If that is what you learned from your encounter, then you are a fool. Do you believe for a moment that, when wise Athos struck down his dearest friend, he felt nothing!? His heart was torn in two, and yet you refuse to understand that!

: Eliwood…

: Nergal! I will defeat you! Here! Today! But…even now, there is no hatred in my heart. You who were born human, you who lost the heart that defines your humanity… For you, I have nothing but pity.

: …Pity? Heh heh heh… Amusing. A weak fool like you has "pity" for me? Interesting… Now, if you hope to defeat me, you may have your chance. Of course, you will have to best my morphs first!

: Everyone, stay back!

: Hey! What are you talking about? We've come this far together, haven't we?

: That's right! I've said it before. We all feel the same way.

: Hector… Lyndis…

: Don't forget me, Lord Eliwood! And…Ninian. I'm sure she's here as well.

: Nils… Ah! Art, you, too?

And now, every unit you brought with you takes the time to say something encouraging...or not so encouraging, depending on the unit. But everyone chimes in nonetheless.

: Blessed Saint Elimine, grant us the strength to win this with ease.

: For years, I've studied. Now, let those studies show their worth!

: I'll do whatever I can to help!

: I'm Dart, brave crewman of Fargus's pirates, and I fear nothing!

: Blessed Saint Elimine, please grant us a miracle...

: For the honor of the knights of Ostia.

: For those whose reasoning is bent, I will straighten it with my bow.

: Everyone… Let's go! We've got to stop Nergal!

Damn straight.

And so it begins. I doubt anyone was expecting a Megaman-style boss rush, were they? Uhai is up first.

Definitely been upgraded a bit. Rienfleche is the S-rank bow, and though it supposedly strikes consecutively, I've never seen it do so. Not that it really matters, what's far more important is that like all of the weapons we're going to see in this chapter, they fucking hurt.

Furthermore, you don't have any time to dawdle around. You get one turn free of interruptions to deal with each morph, and that's it. If you haven't felled Uhai in the first turn, another door will open and you'll have that morph and Uhai to deal with. And then it escalates from there. This is the worst case scenario, and you definitely don't want to be dealing with more than two of them at a time, doubly so for the ranged ones like Uhai.

And this is why. Now imagine two, three, maybe even more of units like this running around, and you have a mere 12 units to cover the entire map.

They don't have a lot to say, either.

One round. And the only reason Uhai took so much damage is Rebecca criticaled.

So glad you decided to save a rather awesome level for after you didn't kill Uhai, Rath.

One down.

Err, thanks? For the rest of the turn, the mages head northwest, Hector and Oswin east, and Eliwood west.

Turn 2: Kenneth.

Still best taken out with a fast physical unit, but Luce is the other S-rank Light tome, and is appropriately painful. Kenneth's druid buddy has Gespenst, the S-rank Dark tome, but he's a generic and therefore doesn't have near the stats to really put it to use.

First up, clearing out his flunky blocking the entrance.

Luce, though, is far too heavy for Kenneth's meager Con.

Second big problem for Kenneth. This is going to fucking hurt. Two down, and Athos gets his own light tome to replace Aureola.

Speaking of Aureola: Orbital bombardment, the spell. It also boosts Resistance by 5, making Lucius even more immune to magic.

And Lucius caps magic as a reward.

Lyn cleans up a sniper left over from last turn. She's going to need the speed to use Sol Katti, so I'm not going to complain.

Turn 3: Brendan.

You never actually fight Brendan, so it can really only be assumed he's been tuned up a bit by Nergal. Regardless, Basilikos is very, very painful, and weighs in at the second strongest weapon in the game period (Gespenst is number one, with 23 Mt compared to Basilikos's 22). Yes, even stronger than Nergal's personal tome, and all the other S-rank weapons.

Erk starts by killing off his flunky, and then Eliwood gets his first chance to show off.

He didn't actually have enough speed to double Brendan, so this was lucky as hell, but it looks awesome.

Turn 4: Darin.

Much like Brendan, ranged attacks (particularly magic) are the way to go, but we're going to be completely ignoring that and going for "awesome" instead. Serra has the honor of killing the flunky.

Hector puts Darin in his place.

Turn 5: Ursula and Jerme. Who's Jerme? He's a guy we didn't see because of how we went through the game. We'll see him later.

I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure Ursula actually had higher resistance when we fought her in Battle Before Dawn.

Jerme is a pretty strong assassin, but he's using a Runesword, which acts like Nosferatu. At close up, and at range. If you're going to leave one of these, make it him. He's by far the weakest link in this whole chain.

Wouldn't want to take any chances with Ursula. Well, that and having a 73% critical chance is fucking hilarious to me. Needless to say, Ursula does not survive this.

Rebecca's longbow shenanigans leave Jerme in a very dangerous place.

Lyn is happy to finish the job.

Now that's just uncalled for. Six of eight down.

Finally, turn 6: The Brothers Reed.

Lloyd is by far the more dangerous of the two. The Regal Blade has a Mt of 20, and he's all but guaranteed to hit twice. Making things even worse is his support with Linus, which makes him even stronger.

Linus's Brave Sword is strong, and the Tomahawk is annoying, but neither is as dangerous as Lloyd. Linus is probably the easier of the two to kill and sever the support bonus, but Lloyd should be your primary target.

This is Oswin using the Uber Spear on Lloyd. Take note that he has less than 70% chance to hit, even with the weapon triangle advantage. So let's take the opposite approach. Everyone clears out of the brothers' range except for Oswin. Whichever brother comes to him first is going to be in a world of hurt without their support bonus.

That's what I'm talking about.

Unfortunately, Linus came out with him, but that's no longer a problem. Lloyd is at half health, and can pretty easily be knocked off.

A little bombardment...

...and Divine grace go a long way. Lloyd down.

Seriously, would you just max magic already? You need a single point.

See this Canas? This is a 100% accurate 1 in 3 chance of doing 90 damage every time we attack. This is how Luna is supposed to work, unlike some of your demonstrations.

And there's the man himself.

Max magic. Max resistance. Nearly maxed defense. If he weren't slow (and moved), we'd be utterly fucked. Fortunately, he's lazy, and this will be his downfall.

Pictured: What almost ruined a nearly perfect run of Light.

Asshole reinforcements, the one constant these games allow.

Berserk asshole: dead.

General: dead.

Erk: getting a pretty good level.

Hector, not so much, but really the only other things he could have gotten were strength and luck.

Oh, for...come on! Speed is one off of capping now too.

Eliwood murders a Druid for fun and extra resistance. Not such a great level.

And Rebecca finally caps speed. Now, to Nergal.

: Heh heh...Athos... Take a good look at me! At my tremendous power!

: Already, words are useless. As an old friend...I will fulfill my duty.

It's me. I am the Eclipse asshole. And Nergal just got his HP cut in half by his best friend.

: You are to be witness to a power that overwhelms all!

Well that's kind of embarrassing. How the hell does something like that even whiff in the first place?

A bombardment from Lucius sets him up for the most fitting end possible.

: So you're here, Eliwood. I thought losing Ninian might distract you. Have you forgotten her so quickly? How heartless.

: I haven't forgotten. I'll never forget. It was my mistake that killed Ninian. Because of that, I will fight. I will not run away and hide in sorrow... I'm going to put an end to all of this!

Well, you had a good run, but having 1 HP when Eliwood has a 100% hit rate just isn't going to work out. Maybe next time.