Part 77: The Value of Life

Taking the lead, Hector moves straight toward the Dragon's Gate. Before his eyes, eerie ruins appear. What could they be? Are they connected to Nergal? If they overlook any enemy lurking within, they could be attacked from the rear. Without pause, they open the rusty steel door and step inside…







: …What do you want, monster? You can't fight… You can't harvest quintessence… Powerless and frail, you're naught but a false puppet, a pale imitation. Is this all I was capable of creating in the past…this fool? Absolutely worthless. You are my blunder, my failed morph… You are of no use to me. Go somewhere and rot away into dust.



: There are still some morphs left? So this must be Nergal's doing, too.

: Hey, Lord Hector! It's that weird power again… Like in the ruins below the desert. That area where magic was nullified.

: A magic seal? Here?

: Hector, what are you talking about? What's a magic seal?

: I don't know… I don't know too much about it.

: What's going on? It feels different than last time. In the desert, its energy felt so hostile… Now, it feels more like …sorrow?

: Hector, they're moving.

: I don't know who they are, but it looks like they're after a fight. Show them no mercy! Let's go!

He just wants to be loved.

You’d think Nergal would appreciate the value of someone who could seal magic, but noooo.

The Value of Life is the final sidequest in the game, and the final Kishuna chapter. Before we get started, we have one small thing to do.



As you can see, the assassin promotion gains are quite shit, to say the least. Not that it's not useful - he really appreciates the extra defense and HP, and we'll need all the capable sword arms we can get this chapter.

Thing: Since Silencer is based off of Crit, Morphs’ zero-luck benefits Assassins quite nicely. Legault will have a 19% base instakill rate here... although the chances are he won’t get a whole lot of chances to use it.



Sweet christ, look at all those berserkers.

It's actually not quite as bad as it looks. That's not to say it's not dangerous, god no. Lance users and anyone with a tanked luck score should stay far, far away from this map, but sword users can reap tons of experience. Fortunately, we just so happen to have three units capable of using swords who would really like some experience before, I dunno, a completely ridiculous final battle where they'll be forcibly deployed. And Legault, but he's really just here to pick up the chests and cover another spot when we need him to.  We will need him to do so for approximately 99% of the first 15 or 20 turns. 





All these berserkers come in one of three varieties, and it's imperative that you check what you're about to attack, because the difference between attacking a tomahawk with a sword and a swordslayer with a sword is usually dodging versus losing 25-35 HP depending on who happens to be on the receiving end. Lyn will be getting lots of mileage out of her Killer Bow for these guys.

And it goes without saying that there is a third way in which the Morphs’ lack of luck can work in your favour.

Would you be surprised to know it only happens once in the entire chapter? _{This is because Devil Axes have really shitty accuracy and they’re attacking swords 90% of the time.}



Finally, the man himself. More HP, more defense, more Str/Skl/Res that makes no fucking sense.

Frankly, if we were going for plot consistency, I’d have set his Res to be something insane, like 50. Man, can you imagine a regular enemy with 50 Def/Res? Good thing that’ll never happen, ever...

But he nullifies magic. He doesn’t need resistance because no one can cast it around him.



And this is why you check for weapons.



The reinforcements? More berserkers, of course, and they can be any one of the three Berserker types.



Not helping things is the fact that Nino has just barely hit D-Staves, so using Physic to invalidate the anti-magic zone is a no-go.



Lyn's bow is a HUGE help in killing these guys off. Plus, anything she doesn't kill, Eliwood can hit with his Steel Lance or Hector can axe to death.



That's not to say he does it well, mind you. After he gets hit both times, all I can do is be thankful that Hector landed with his hand axe.



The game pretty quickly ramps things up. The second turn spawns in a berserker from the north end in addition to the east one.

This chapter can easily drive you - no, no, I’m trying to cut this habit--



And speaking of the north one, he throws in the Killer Axe option. Eliwood has the Iron Rune since Lyn is going to die if she gets looked at anyway, and Hector can basically just tank the hit.



No seriously, if this guy didn't have a 0 hit rate, he could one-shot her.

It’s beautiful.



We're off to an excellent start.



Hector, you pull a few more of those and we might be in business yet.



It should also be noted that these guys give off a shitton of experience. Like Legault will get an entire level for killing just one of them, and all of the lords are getting levels from 2 or 3 of them. So if it wasn't obvious, you're going be seeing this screen for the majority of the update. Hope you like an overdose of +1's.

If you’ve ever actually played this game, the chances are you have already developed a Pavlovian response to the +1 shape and that wonderful, wonderful sound it makes.





Nino moves along as best she can, but she's stuck to the corners, and it's almost impossible for her to actually help out. Even if she is in range of an enemy, they'll usually go after Legault or someone they can hit from range without a counter.



I'd say it's shameful that Legault isn't doubling these guys, but they're endgame enemies and he's freshly promoted. That won't last long, however.



Legault dodges two bullets in one turn, as the hit that put him down here was from a Killer Axe.



Dodgier, crittier, etc. etc.



The northern, center berserker has a Swordslayer, which is a problem since Eliwood and Hector are both currently using swords. Fortunately, the ones immediately to the north won't move (though they do both have tomahawks), and neither will the one blocking the way forward. The one to the far left will, but only when we get in range of him. So, to make sure we attract his attention, Merlinus parks himself up next to Hector. He obliges...painfully.



Reinforcements move to the southwest corner. This is your big opportunity to move forward, because doing what I do ends...painfully.



Don't strain yourself or anything, Eliwood. The berserker is also kind enough to drop his Swordslayer for us.



Where the fuck have you been for the rest of your goddamn story? Lyn picks a fight with the walled-off bersekers, and Hector mostly finishes the job.

Man, Hector sure picked a timely moment to start turning himself. That man is an inspiration to axe-users everywhere, and in all Fire Emblem continuities.

Bartre did it first. Admittedly, he wasn’t nearly as all-around screwed, but still.



I legitimately just have nothing to say. I'm just going to dump the levels unless there's something worth talking about.



Now the real fun begins. Every turn, the game dumps a new berserker in each of the fourth reinforcement spots. This continues for the next 6 or 7 turns, and it doesn't take long before you get overwhelmed by sheer numbers unless you play your cards just right. I chose to hole up as best I can here, which basically means Eliwood holds the door, and Hector/Lyn/Legault take the south side.



This would be so much more useful if Nino had A-Staves.



Unremarkable, but she gets Bows-B for the trouble.



And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why you don't give someone with zero luck a Devil Axe.

It’s a bit shitty you only get 1 EXP for that. It’s, like, the game can’t throw you a bone without accidentally screwing you over in the process.







Really, the biggest problem with this map and how it plays out is that the berserkers are so damn strong that it doesn't matter how inaccurate they are - if they hit you even once, that unit is liable to be killed by anything. Hector is the only one that can take more than one hit, and it drops him to less than 10 HP to do so.







More levels.

Legault is starting to look pretty not-shit! Only a little, though.

Only in comparison to our god-units. He’s actually on or ahead of every single one of his averages (which translates to roughly on them given his HHM bonuses), and it definitely helps his argument that the assassin stat caps are 20 for everything except skill and speed (which are 30).



I'm pretty sure this guy had a Swordslayer, and even if he didn't, I'm lucky she wasn't killed outright considering that she was at less than full HP when she got hit.





Nope, he's a tomahawk 'zerker. Lucky as fuck, too, since he hit her twice in a row when she had a sword equipped and was standing right next to Hector.



Finally we come to the end of the reinforcements. Not that it means much, because there's three or four turns worth of reinforcements that are either just now getting to us or have been slowly building up at our front line.







A new toy! The Runesword acts like Nosferatu (even close up) which really limits its usefulness, but in the hands of someone with high enough skill and strength it's a nasty surprise for physical tanks.





Ladies and gentlemen...Drum roll, if you please.


















I'm not going to lie, for a second I actually did contemplate resetting until she didn't get defense, but I wasn't going to tempt the RNG gods any more than I had to.

For posterity: The odds of Lyn getting only one point of Defence across 32 levels is about 0.6%. The odds of Lyn getting no defence for 31 levels is ~0.1%. Yeeep.



Once you open the door to Kishuna, the two stairs to his side immediately spawn berserkers and will do so until you kill Kishuna. If you've got weapons to burn, this is by far the best source of infinite experience in the game (not counting arena abuse, of course). They come in a Swordslayer/Tomahawk pair, followed by a Tomahawk/Devil Axe pair the next turn.



This was the sad moment that Hector's skill was no longer his best stat. However, I'll take the trade-off that it brings in a usable Hector. He and Lyn cover the left stairs, Eliwood takes the right. Legault attacks Kishuna, and Lyn joins him when she can.



The throne makes him a bit annoying to hit, since it gives him a grand total of 70 avoid. The fact that he has no luck is what makes this battle winnable, because you know damn well that he would have max or near max luck, which would be about 30 extra avoid plus the huge crit reduction.







Last batch of levels.

Know what? I think Hector’s about as redeemed as he could have gotten. I mean, okay, he’s still behind in basically all his important averages (and ahead in Skill and Res ), but his progress in this chapter has been astounding.



Fucking finally! Now stay dead, you asshole.



: We beat it. But what was it? We saw it here once before, and then under the desert. Was that the same creature?

: After that final blow, its body crumbled into dust.

: Yeah. That's the same thing that happened to those morphs.

: So this thing… This magic seal was a morph, too? But it didn't look anything like the rest of them.

: But it was still a morph. When it died… I heard its voice call out… It called out a name… Nergal. Did you hear its voice? Sorrow… It was filled with a terrible sorrow.

: …

: Everybody, are you ready? Once we get through here, it's on to the Dragon's Gate and the final battle! Here we go! Time to crush Nergal's ambitions!

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