Part 52: Noble Lady of Caelin
The only conversation is immediately after Florina gets shot down.
: Can you hear me? Florina?
: Lord Eliwood?... I...: Those archers almost hit you. You avoided the arrows, but you lost your balance and fell.: And yet... I'm not hurt. I fell from such a height. What--
: You got lucky. I didn't. You landed right on top of me!: Oh!: Hector saved you.
: A bale of hay could have done more than I did.: Eeek! Oh... Oh, I'm so sorry!: You were lucky, Florina. If you had fallen on me, I couldn't have caught you. Or your pegasus either!: They fell one after the other! I couldn't get out of the way!: M-M-My pegasus, too? I am so... I'm truly... I don't know what to say! I...um... I...: No apology needed. You do need to tell us why you're here, however.: Yes, of... of course! Lord Eliwood, Lady Lyndis is beyond that forest. She's waiting for a chance to assault the castle.: She's what!? Ah... Still, it's good to hear she's safe.: She's fine. However, Lord Hausen's been captured. He's still in the castle.: I see. Let's go then!Well, that's one way to put it, I suppose. Now then, Noble Lady of Caelin is a map that looks a lot harder than it is.
On one hand, you definitely start feeling the squeeze in how many units you're allowed to bring. It's definitely impacted by getting all of Lyn's crew back, but you're only allowed 8 units, which is even less than last chapter. Eliwood has swapped in for Matthew, and Dorcas has hit the bench for this chapter. I was really trying to find a way to swap in Erk, but that would have been between Marcus and Lowen, and Lowen's not nearly strong enough to double up on Marcus's duties.
The thief from before has been moved a lot closer to our starting position, and there are a few extra cavaliers nearby.
Quite a few extra cavaliers (and pegs), as a matter of fact. This is really all the changes, though. It's a pretty lazy "hard mode" map.
Hey, at least it's theoretically possible to hit them with our archers this time. That's something.
4 HP, 2 Str and Skl, 1 Spd, Def, Res. Not perfect, but his incredibly low defense (for a knight, at least) is still going to be his downfall. He did pick up a Steel Lance for an actual close-range threat, but that eliminates one of the things that made him dangerous in the first place; namely, you were always going to have to eat a counter no matter how you attacked.
Ever notice how Fire Emblem just loves throwing knight-bosses at you in the early game? And your lords just happen to have weapons that are effective against them! What an astounding coincidence!
Get your crazy talk out of here, Fedule. They'd never do something like that on purpose.
And by the way, never forget:
Hector.
Hard.
Hates you.
Thanks to their Best Worst Levels Ever™, Kent and Sain at least have their uses here.
Sure, once they have some actual equipment.
Sain starts things off by heading for the center village.
Kent makes use of Lyn's Red Gem funds to get equipped with an Iron Lance and Javelin. He could probably get better use out of Steel, but that's quite expensive for now.
That extra 100G doesn't seem like much until you factor in the 15 uses you're losing for that bit of extra damage. AKA an extra chapter or so without having to buy another one.
And on Hector's side, everyone just heads south, as Hector and Bartre head east to bait some pegs.
Baiting pegs is always a priority, especially on large maps where your unit count is restricted and you don't have lots of tanks to protect the squishy ones.
Oh you motherfucker. I don't even have Matthew to steal it back.
Bandits start showing up a turn earlier than usual, but they're nothing to worry about. Florina is right on top of one village and Sain will be at the other next turn.
Eliwood gets the first level on the thief. A shame he didn't return those vulneraries.
This is what we like to see.
I never stopped believing in you, Guy!
Florina raids village number one.
Lyn levels up after mopping up a peg knight. It's just so hard to be excited about the "totally-not-a-myrmidon Lord" when you've got an actual myrmidon getting better levels and just kicking more ass in general. How the hell does she still have 2 defense?
Odds of that: less than a percent.
Well, this looks awfully familiar.
Lowen: Remaining relevant in the wake of Kent being here.
Village number two. Now all we have to do is kill everyone.
Marcus picks up another level for slaughtering cavaliers. It'll probably be one of his last ones, now that Kent and Sain are here.
Marcus' levels: 2
Marcus' stat gains: 2
Four, maybe five turns in and Bauker's force has alreaby been reduced to about 10 units.
Oswin and Bartre take up their positions. Just like Eliwood's story, there'll be a fair amount of cavaliers coming from behind to try and ruin our day.
Lowen pulls out another good level. He's ahead of his averages in skill, speed, and resistance, and dead on in pretty much everything else.
We're almost done already.
But here comes the cavalry. The only challenge left here is to keep Bartre alive.
Hector and Eliwood are hanging out a bit further south, near Merlinus's tent. Eliwood becomes a rather popular target of the cavs, but Hector is quick to put them down. And get a shitty level doing it.
Did I mention Guy is kicking all kinds of ass? More strength, more defense, one point away from capping speed at level 10...
This is for that one guy in the thread who said he's never seen a usable Guy.I am delighted to present The Numbers on Guy: He is Five Points ahead of his average in strength (3 if you factor in hard mode bonus, I guess, but it felt better to type "Five Points", so shut up and let me have this. He's 4 (2) ahead in speed, and 3 ahead in luck, incidentally giving him a base avoid of Fifty (if he gets another point in speed (shut up and let me have this)). He's also got 2 (1) more defense than is the norm. His skill is actually technically behind at this point, though the accuracy of swords will correct for that.
What I'm trying to say is, fucking Guy motherfuckers!
(oh and he's behind in resistance too, but we've got Lyn to cover for that
)
He's only going to hit once, it probably won't be too accurate, but goddamn is it going to hurt.
How about that speed growth, Bartre? Huh?
And that's a wrap for those chucklefucks. Bartre did far better than I was expecting him to, he only got hit like twice.
Priscilla patches up Merlinus for a rather nice level, and now we trek everyone back over to Bauker.
But first, another shopping trip thanks to those Red Gems. A pair of Hand Axes and Javelins, spare Iron Swords, Lances, and Axes, and the all important vulneraries.
Wil starts by putting a ballista bolt in Bauker, and gets an underwhelming level. Hector and Bartre follow up with their Hand Axes, but only Hector's lands. Kent also makes a token effort to help, but whiffs on both Javelin tosses.
This is going to be our secret weapon against Bauker. Sain's barely putting up a 50% hit rate, but he can take the hit from Bauker easily.
Sain, you might recall, is the one with the
Sain lands. This one's in the bag.
A level without strength? Hitting on a sub-50% chance? Who are you and what did you do with Sain?
Eliwood's been a little neglected as of late, so he gets the final blow on Bauker. The resulting level is not something that inspires me to give him more screentime.
At the very least, he's got added dodging capability now.
Hector and Eliwood hang around to get a B-support, Priscilla does a little healing, and that brings this chapter to a close. Nothing new at the end of the chapter, so onward we go.
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Resets this chapter: 0
Total resets: 3
Not having treasure to worry about does wonders for keeping the reset count down. Next map'll be doing something about that... maybe
Oh it will. Just not for the reason you're expecting.