Part 61: Paralogue 16: Abducted

Time for one final paralogue! Just like Possessed, the title of this chapter is a verb. I don't think this means anything.



It is pretty weird, although I guess you could potentially have a nephew who is older than you even without time dilation shenanigans. Factoring in parent relations would mean even more supports in a game that's already bloated full of way too many, but Elise & Forrest deserved a support together at the very least.



It's Forrest! He's very pink, which I guess does match with his outfit. He's probably got one of the easiest designs to ruin with a bad hair colour - the first Forrest I had inherited Beruka's blue-y green hair and it looked hideous on him. Although my understanding of fashion and colour theory is basically non-existant so don't take my word on anything.



The goal here is to rout the enemy and save Forrest from a slowly advancing attacker. There's some complications to this that I'll get into soon.

I always thought this was one of the scarier paralogues, but I think my team is very well equipped to deal with it. As you can see there's a lot of powerful and dangerous enemy types, and they're all packed together quite tightly. Berserkers and Sorcerers are a brutal combination thanks to their high offenses from either side of the spectrum and high crit rates, and of course the Generals all have Wary Fighter. There's also a few Heroes but they're the least threatening enemy type here.



The boss doesn't move and is merely one of the many enemies you need to defeat to end the chapter, so you can fight him whenever you're ready. He is however extremely dangerous, and he's placed on a gate with a powerful 1-2 range weapon. He comes with Certain Blow to make baiting him into attacking on enemy phase more dangerous, and Pavise just to annoy you if you're hitting him with physical attacks. Thanks to his high stats he is also an extremely valuable capture target, but you have to make sure Niles won't die in the process of attempting to grab him.

He also looks nothing like Arthur, chin aside. The stiches on his head look gnarly - whatever injury required those to fix looks like it split his head in half...



Forrest starts all the way in a little room at the top. He'll only join if he survives the chapter, and he's another unit whose skills aren't decided until after the map is finished. So be careful if either of his parents are close to learning something new.

A single enemy will spawn as soon as you engage any of the enemies on this map in combat and slowly march over to where Forrest is to kill him. Do this chapter early enough and he might be able to survive a single hit, but don't count on it.



There's not a lot of enemy skills in this map, but the ones that are there are very annoying. Certain Blow is hellish on a Berserker, you really don't want the combination of high crit and high hit on an enemy that does as much damage as they do. Wary Fighter is also a pain but at this point it's best to assume any General in this game will have it anyway.



No skills on these guys though. I'm genuinely surprised, you'd think at least one Sorcerer would have Malefic Aura or something.



Reinforcements will arrive from these stairs at the top and a set of stairs hidden under an enemy in the boss room. They'll spawn in if any enemy inside the boss room is aggro'd. Two Generals and two Heroes come from the top stairs, 4 Sorcerers come from the boss room. The former you could block fairly easily, the latter requires you to both kill the unit standing on the stairs and put someone else in his place.



There's also some doors and a chest for you to open. The topmost door grants access to where Forrest is being kept, and the chest contains 5000g. Enemies will drop keys for you to open them all but you're better off bringing a unit with Locktouch just in case.



I want all my best units for this chapter, so once again Midori must stay home. Leo unfortunately is a bit of a dud, but I can at least pair him up with Ophelia for some nice bonuses. He's being more of a father to her than Odin is...



But first Shigure will cook everyone a very high quality meal to boost their stats. I would have gone def & res but I still don't have any wheat...



The enemies will not move and the one enemy that will attack Forrest will not spawn until you either engage in combat or stand in range of an attacker. I'd say it's an interesting gimmick, but it's honestly how most maps in Conquest play out anyway... Regardless, you have as much time to set up as you want so take advantage of it!



Your army starts off split into two groups, but with all the time you have to set up there's no real reason to stick to that arrangement. I'll do so anyway though. Group 1 takes the direct route into the stronghold...



Group 2 sneaks around the outside. You can bust down these walls to enter the fortress from the left, but keep in mind that doing so will put whoever attacked them in range of enemies and therefore aggro them. The reason why you want to split your army like this is to split up all the enemy units to reduce the amount of pressure on each of your frontliners.



Storming this room and taking out the one guy with Certain Blow seems like the best idea. I'm not sure Ophelia can survive a combined assault from all these enemies however...



...and then I remembered Nosferatu exists. Rally her up, stick her on a defensive tile, hit end turn. Easy!



Corrin will bait a single Sorc and General from the top of the map over to her to lower her HP and to thin out the enemies a little. They won't all aggro at once, so it's best to lure them one by one if you can. You are on a time limit but you can afford to play it safe for the first few turns of combat.



Somebody has to take out these Paladins at the top. I don't think Nina's going to be much help this map, she's mostly here to open things.



Then I realised I had already moved Elise this turn and Azura was all the way back here, which means I'm starting the map proper with terrible positioning and nobody's there to defeat the second Paladin and stop Nina from getting attacked. Oops?



Oh well, let's just see how this plays out. Ophelia's taking a lot of damage but she's healing a lot too - I doubt she could take a whole room of Berserkers but she can survive a couple.



Corrin can fairly easily survive the combined assault of a Sorcerer and a General attacking her. The second hit puts her in VoF range...



I guess that's okay. She's been swapping class so much that I'm not sure what her stats are actually like.



Good thing there was only one guy to attack Nina. The Paladins all have the Trample skill but Nina's on a horse so she takes no extra damage from it.



Here comes a lumberjack to commit some deforestation. His portrait isn't promoted, but...



He is a Berserker. Doing this chapter late enough that all the enemies are promoted means he'll have an extra point of movement, so he'll reach Forrest faster. He also has Locktouch so he can actually open the door to reach him. It is possible to hit him with an Entrap and kill him to remove the chapter's time limit, but I don't think I'll need to resort to that. You can also heckle him with Freeze to slow him down if you need to.



Unfortunately while Nosferatu is great for tanking, it's not so good for killing. These enemies don't have enough HP for Ophelia to steal to keep herself alive so I'll need to take some of them out.



Killing this General I baited over will establish a small safe zone where my squishier units can stand. Shigure can barely hurt him but all he needs to do is get Corrin to dual attack in order to kill.



Looks like he'll be relying on dual attacks for the rest of his days.



Silas can help clear enemies out now he's got his VoF boost. Sol's not as reliable as Nosferatu, but it's good enough.



Camilla meanwhile continues her strategy of slowly luring enemies over. I forgot to give her Swordbreaker, it would have been nice here.



Xander smashes open the wall and puts himself in range of 3 Sorcerers. He'll need a boost to keep himself alive.



Elise can stand next to him to boost his bulk. I hit "rally" absentmindedly thinking she could boost his defense or his resistance, but her rally boosts strength...



I might have been in some trouble here had Ophelia not blocked this. Going into battle with a full guard gauge is generally the best option, the enemy usually sends in their strongest attacker first.



Where were these levels when I was considering using you? At least Leo's stats will have some effect on Forrest's... This is like that thing where a mother can lift a car up off of her child in times of crisis.



That's all the enemies in this room down. I took out as many physical attackers on player phase as I could, they're the ones that threaten her and Silas the most.



Camilla's bulky enough to bait over a couple of enemies at a time, even if her HP isn't very good. If I had another robe I'd give it to either her or Ophelia.



Oh, I think Aegis might have just saved me. The combination of Elise's personal and my accidental rally pushed Xander over the threshold for OHKOing the enemy Sorcerers, preventing him from building guard gauge... I guess I should be glad I kept it on him.



The Berserkers are no threat at all at least. Unfortunately all the ralliers I have on this side boost defense and not resistance.



I guess that's caused all the Berserkers to aggro. Good! Xander can deal with these effortlessly while the right side of my army cleans out the other enemies.



May as well have Nina break down this wall and get closer to the loot. It's pretty impressive that she can shatter a stone wall with a single arrow, even if it is cracked.



I have seen the light, I'll get rid of Quick Riposte and not Aegis for this. This'll help him tank even better, between dual guards Aegis and Sol he'll be very hard to kill. Skills that have only a chance of keeping you alive get better the more chances you overlay.



How high level your dancer is is generally an indicator of how slow you've been playing. I don't think I'm breaking any turncount records...



Most of the map is cleared, now I need to infiltrate this room. Getting rid of that one Berserker should make tanking with Ophelia or Silas easier?



Oh and there's all the Berserkers in the treasure room. I'm not sure what aggro'd them...



Nina seems to end up paired with Xander a lot, I'm not really sure why. I don't think she's ever been able to take advantage of her personal from teaming up when he's been paired with Laslow.



Ooooops I think this is maybe a group of enemies I should have not tried to Nosferatu tank. I guess I'd better hope they don't crit...



Yet another embarrassing restart avoided! I don't think a crit has caused me one so far, but I would rather not end up in this situation again.



I guess engaging them in combat triggered the reinforcements? That's a little annoying...



The Sorcs aren't so bad, but their range does overlap with the range of these guys, so I'll have to waste a turn or two baiting them out safely.



That's a pretty cool last level! Now to never use Camilla again because she wastes EXP!!!!



Oh there's another guy with a killer weapon and he's in range of Camilla, uuggggghhhh. I guess I have to do something to fix this.



Shigure pairs up with her and swaps her to her Dual Club. A large amount of the Sorcerer's attack comes from their S rank weapon bonuses, but all of those disappear if they're facing WTD.



The combined power of WTA and Shigure's resistance boost allows her to survive a crit, but she dodged anyway. Nice.



Now to waste another turn baiting all the mages over before I can clean up the boss room. Forrest's not in any danger yet, but it's only a few turns now.



The rough terrain does at least slow his advance somewhat. It'll be fairly trivial to slap a Freeze on him to buy some time if I have to.



I think this is the first time this forged tome has actually been necessary to secure a KO. I knew it wasn't a waste! Between the huge power of the Bolt Axe, the accuracy of the Fire tome, and the power of Lightning's brave effect, it's hard to find a use for it. This one enemy just happened to be too bulky for Fire to kill but too evasive for the Bolt Axe to be safe.



Now I can finally go back on the offensive. Cleaning out this one Berserker means Silas won't have anything to fear in this room. The Sorcs don't deal much damage and can barely hit him, and the Generals by the door can't reach him.



Time to kick down this door and save Forrest. At this point Lightning is much better at dealing with armours than the Armourslayer is.



Door opened, threat neutralised. Now to progress through the rest of the map at a leisurely pace.



One more magic level and she'll be able to cap with a Spirit Dust. Even once she hits level 20 I'll still want to throw her at enemies as much as possible to raise her tome rank to S.



This is the kind of level I assumed Elise would be getting after she capped all her stats, but it took this long for it to actually happen. The buildings in the village outside look nice...



That's the treasure gotten. I could use this to pay Forrest's ransom!!!



Whatever you say.



No more paralogues! I'm freeeeeeeeee



Leo learns to appreciate his cool son and learns a valuable lesson of tolerance. It's all a bit Very Special Episode.



Unlike Dwyer, Forrest very much leans towards the Strategist class. His magic is much higher and his strength is pretty awful. He also doesn't get a unique outfit as a Butler and that's the real reason not to make him one.



Unfortunately as a hostage he had all his stuff taken away from him at the start of the chapter... An extra Mend would have been nice. Oh well!


Next time: Inevitable End