Part 11: Lion King Eltshan Part 1: Agusty-Madino

Chapter 3: Agusty-Madino

Ok so after a very long Chapter 2, let's begin Chapter 3. Of course, we only traveled through part of Agustria before, so I guess we'll spend a while going through the rest of it.





Keeping his word with Eltshan, Sigurd did not pursue him.



promise to Eltshan. He persisted in negotiations aimed to return administrative control back to Agusty. However, the directive from Barhara to 'maintain a presence', and 'govern the people', never changed.

In a half year's time, the officials dispatched to Agustria became exceedingly reckless, and began to abuse the power they were entrusted with. The discontent of the Agustrian people slowly began to take root. Before long, a new conflict arose giving Sigurd great cause for concern.





Agusty.



positioned themselves to take advantage of the ensuing chaos. Sigurd had strict orders from Barhara to hold Agusty Castle at any cost. The ensuing conflict weighed heavily on Sigurd's heart.





The battle on the horizon was gearing up to be a true test of one's friendship and loyalty. All of Sigurd's attention was now focused on the looming threat at the northern reaches of Agustria... one that could very well change the course of history.

Man they have a dramatic way of putting things. Of course, the narration doesn't lie, there are a lot of serious consequences as a result of this battle.





Chapter 3: Lion King Eltshan





This is our last chance to take back Agusty! Look at them... making themselves at home in MY country! I can only be pushed so far. They're going to pay dearly for this! Jacoban! Where's my swordsman... Jacoban!?



Well, s'boring job, but the pay's good. Anyone that gets in my face is gettin' my Thunder Sword!

That's the spirit, Jacoban! We're counting on you.









Aaah... I can't fight Sigurd. What to do... what to do...







I reckon th' villages'll be ours fer th' takin'. We couldn't lay a hand on 'em with th' Agustrian army always 'round, but now it'll be a cinch!

Dobarl, enough! I won't allow any such nonsense! I've got a creed to uphold, and pilfering is no part of it. We Orgahill Pirates are known for giving to the poor, not taking from them!

Hmm, she look familiar… Didn't somebody back in the Prologue mention Aideen having a sister who got kidnapped by pirates? And then didn't somebody else mention it again in Chapter 1?



That woman? She ain't th' late cap'n's daughter, I'll have ya know. The cap'n picked 'er up when she was a wee lit'le t'ing and raised 'er here on this island. But no one 'as told 'er. So she t'inks she's runnin' t'ings. T'is nothin' t'worry 'bout, mate. Well, 'nough said. Let's go a treasure huntin'!

And here we have another case of recolors, with Debarl being DiMaggio and Pizarl being Gerrard. As I've said before, there are quite a lot of recolors in this game, due to space limitations when it was made.







Eltshan... what in the world is going on...

And in the midst of all this, the Orgahill Pirates have begun to move.

Really? Well, we've no choice. Prepare to attack!



Someone has to stay behind with our baby boy.

...Yes, I know.

Dierdre, don't be so down... I promise I'll be back as soon as I can! Shanan, help me out. I need you to look after Deirdre and Celice.



Dierdre, I hope that'll put you a bit at ease. Don't you worry. This isn't forever.

Sigurd...

So that's kind of Dierdre's thing for this chapter. During the year off between chapters, she and Sigurd had a son, so she has to look after him and can't actually leave the castle, which means we're gonna try and get her through as much of the arena as possible. Unfortunately I don't think it'll have too much effect, but even a few extra levels always help I guess. Let's take a look at the map:





The map looks huge, but it really goes pretty quickly if you know what you're doing. We're in Agusty to the south, attacking Madino to the north. To the very north is an island containing the pirate base to the east, and the Tower of Blagi to the west. There's also a small army of mages in the forest in the middle. We'll see more of that later. We'll actually have to spread out early on to save some of those villages, and there will be a bit of backtracking, but this will go much more quickly than Chapter 2. The music for this chapter and its arrangement are tracks that start out slow and calm, then quickly pop with energy. I think this is supposed to mirror Eltshan's character. He tries to lay low, and be trusting of Sigurd, though circumstances force him to become hostile and rush into doing things he wouldn't normally want to do. Overall I like this chapter's theme pretty well, though I wouldn't put it as one of my favorites. Now, some quick battle preparations:



Ethlin hit level 20 either last chapter with all that Return abusing, or in the arena at the start of the chapter. She is now "(up arrow) OK!" This of course means we can promote her, something I haven't really talked about yet.



As I did mention before, there's this handy little Promote option at the home castle. The home castle is the only place units can promote. Promoting, or Class Changing, essentially upgrades a unit, giving them immediate stat boosts (Promotion Bonuses), larger stat caps (new stat caps are equal to [Old Stat Caps] + [Promotion Bonuses], so if a stat was capped before promotion, it will be capped after promotion as well), upgraded weapon ranks, usually proficiency in new weapons, increased movement, new skills for certain classes, and a new class title. For example, Ethlin's class title will change from Troubadour to Paladin. Unlike other FE games, what sex a unit is affects what they promote into. Also it seems like some base classes promote into the same promoted class (both Social Knights and Troubadours promote into Paladin), but the classes are actually differentiated by sex and in some cases slightly different stat caps (all Social Knights are male and promote into Paladin (M), while all Troubadours are female and promote into Paladin (F). Male and Female Sword Fighters also promote into different classes, etc.). Now then, let's promote.





We get a short little animation when promoting as well!









We get engulfed in light from a pentagram.





Then the sprite starts shining and flips, changing to the new, promoted sprite.





The light fades, and we get our stat ups, which we see…



Here! Ethlin has pretty great promotion bonuses, some of the best in the game. In general stat gains on promotion are a lot more interesting in FE4 and 5 than in future games. In more modern games, units will generally get +1 or +2 in every stat except HP and Luck. However here you can see Ethlin got +6 Strength, +2 Magic, +3 Skill and Speed, +6 Defense, and +2 Resistance. Pretty damn impressive. Let's see what else she got.



She's gained proficiency in Lances, which we won't actually use, but it's nice to have I guess. So she's now quite a bit more capable in combat, and a lot more durable than before. You may have also noticed, if you're familiar with the series, that her level didn't reset to level one. Instead of having a unit go through 20 levels, promote, reset to 1, then go through 20 more levels, every unit just has a level cap of 30 that never resets. A unit can promote as soon as they hit level 20, though they can continue gaining levels without needing to promote. There's no benefit do delaying promotion past level 20, though this way you don't feel forced to send a unit back to the home castle as soon as they hit 20. Anyway, I believe Lex is ready to promote as well, from Axe Knight to…





Great Knight! This class is basically the same as Axe Knight, but with an A Axe rank instead of a B Axe rank, and higher caps. Although, all of the playable Axe Knights in the game have minor Neir Blood, so the increased Axe rank doesn't really do anything. Well, here's his new stats.



On promotion he gains +5 Str, +0 Mag, +1 Skl and Spd, +4 Def, and +3 Mag. So yea, classes generally get promotion gains that suit their strengths. So Axe/Great Knight, a class that is generally strong and durable but slow and has trouble hitting, gets high attack and defense boosts, and not much for Skl and Spd. Now, before we sortie, we're gonna shift some items around.



First of all Azel buys Elfire, the B Rank Fire tome, from the store. It's basically a stronger but heavier version of Fire, similar to Levin's Elwind.



The shop now sells one of each Silver weapon. Lex will take the Silver Axe, though he'll probably never use it since the Hero Axe is so much better. Lachesis will take the Silver Sword, Jamka will take the Silver Bow (Midir can't actually use it before promotion), and nobody can use the Silver Lance besides Cuan, and he already has one, so that'll just sit there until Fury promotes.



After doing as much of the arena as possible, Dierdre is gonna wanna sell all her gear for others to use. Except her Circlet of course which is bound to her.



Aideen will buy Libro from whoever killed Shagaal last chapter, and Silence from Dierdre. The rest of her stuff will just stay in the shop for now. I don't have a shot for it, but Lex buys the Pursuit Ring from Arden. He's now probably our strongest unit in terms of damage, having the Hero Axe doubling for heavy damage, Pursuit for doubling again, and high natural Str and Spd thanks to his inflated level from Elite. Of course he won't gain a ton of EXP due to his high level, so he'll be used mostly for side things this chapter, like rescuing villages.



And lastly, here we see Dierdre is really unable to Sortie. Ah, the trouble with having a kid. You can't go fight pointless wars started by huge assholes.



So we deploy our troops. I believe this is the first time I show off Sylvia's dancing abilities. We put four units in a little diamond with an empty space in the middle.



Sylvia takes that empty space…



And dances, refreshing all four surrounding units.



People start moving forward again, and we notice Holyn can talk to Aira.





Why me? You should be using this.

I've a feeling things are going to get nasty here soon. Besides, anyone who fights like you could use a couple extra swords. Keep yourself well protected. I may not always be here to defend you.

Holyn, thank you. I'll cherish this sword!





So this'll be Aira's weapon for the rest of Gen 1. Strong, light, and of course the Hero attribute. Note, Lex can also have a similar conversation with Aira to give her the sword. Of course, only one of the two can actually have the conversation, and if Aira already has a lover by this point (even if it's Holyn or Lex), nobody can have the conversation, and the Hero Sword is lost. Lex's conversation with her will likely be covered in a bonus update, either at the end of the chapter or the end of the generation. Anyway, whoever talks to her gets some love points with her. This is the chapter where quite a few of our pairings will finish up, hopefully including Aira/Holyn.



So we get everyone spread out. Alec, Noish, Midir, Dew, and Aira will be heading due east to fight a small force there, and try to get to a village or two. Fury, Levin, and Azel will be heading into the forest to take on the mages there. Lex is gonna go west on his own to save a far away village, and maybe take on a small force of enemies by himself. Everyone else will be heading north to Madino.



This is the small eastern force. This'll actually be one of the hardest parts of this section since I'm using pretty crap units to take on armors. It was a really stupid move in retrospect. They won't move too fast initially though, so we can kinda slow play this. We probably won't though.



There are also some pirates in the water that'll move towards the villages. Shouldn't be a huge problem. There are also some pirates to the east that will actually be a problem, but I don’t think I have a screenshot for that.



So Midir will initiate combat here with the Killer Bow, scoring a crit to immediately blow a huge wound to the enemy.



The rest of that force moves up to support Midir, without getting too close to the enemy.







The troops spread out some more. Lex approaches some neutral Sivail units, working his way to a village to the north. There's also a small enemy squad to the south, but let's ignore them for now.



On the next turn, our eastern army pulls a full retreat because otherwise they'll gang up on one guy and kill him. Their miniboss has a Javelin as well, so he can pick off Aideen or Dew pretty easily.



Let's look at our main army now.



We're gonna set up a defensive wall here, trying to draw attention to Lachesis, Beowulf, Fin, and Holyn if possible.







Fury starts attacking the mages, and our own mages advance. Their high Res will help them live for a while.





Lex saves that village, then retreats to attack the approaching Western army. I'm having him not visit the village because it gives a non-money reward that I wanna save for somebody else.



So on enemy phase we successfully got the enemy to go for Lachesis, still trying to promote her as quickly as possible.





So Fin scores a kill, then gets healed by Lachesis who gets healed by Ethlin.



Aira easily kills the miniboss with her Hero Sword, and the rest of the army moves the wall up.





Fury goes and kills the mage leader, and our mages get ready to advance some more.



Levin will actually head east to meet up with the main army. He can dodge tank those generals pretty easily, and has a decent chance to kill them if he activates a skill.









We try in vain to kill a single armor knight, and move back to protect our frail units. Unfortunately Aideen is still vulnerable from the north, though she can take a hit and has a decent dodge rate so it's no huge deal.



I'm not sure what the hell the enemy archers were doing here, but they were all over the place.



The armors slowly advance, much to my detriment.



And the Western Army shows up, ready to die to Lex. So let's do that first.





He easily kills the miniboss, and stands ready to destroy the rest on enemy phase.



Now let's destroy these chumps. I'm really focusing on getting kills with my unmounted units, especially Azel, since he's starting to fall behind at this point.





Focusing on Azel so much that I set him up for two kills.



And grab another with Lachesis.





And Cuan sets up Beowulf for a kill since he's falling behind too.



And we start to see Madino's last defense. Let's have Fury kill some mages. Unfortunately they've all been attacking her at 2 range and whittling her down and successfully not dying.



Blah blah mage kill, nothing special. Let's go southeast.





Midir unfortunately does not crit this time, but Alec and Noish finish off the chump. And then they all retreat.





On enemy phase we see the Reserve staff for the first time, a great staff that heals every nearby ally. I believe we'll be getting one of our own soon.





Lex, having successfully destroyed everyone, moves north to stop the new pirate from getting to the village.



Jamka gets some skills off to kill the armor here, grabbing his first kill in a while.



Levin moves up to easily take out an archer.





Cuan and Sigurd weaken some armors so that some infantry can get some kills.





Azel and Holyn grab some weakened kills, and Azel's position sets up a nice diamond for us.



















So Azel, Lachesis, Fin, and Beowulf grab kills, and Sigurd weakens the last archer. We pretty much destroyed their army in one turn. There are a few ballistae north of the castle offscreen, but they won't be a big problem.









Still struggling in the south, we manage to take out the last non-miniboss armor, and reinforce our defensive position. Luckily the miniboss won't attack Aideen for whatever reason. He prefers to focus on Alec and Noish.



And on the next turn Lex gets another easy kill, saving the village once more.







We quickly set up a diamond while attacking a harmless old bishop. Before starting on the boss, let's take a look at him.



Jacoban has the Thunder Sword, a sword that has 12 Mt at 1 range, and attacks with Elthunder at 2 range. At 1 range it attacks with the user's Str vs. the enemy's Def, while at 2 range it attacks with Mag vs. Res. There's also a Wind Sword that we get soon, and a Fire Swords that we'll get in Gen 2.







Ethlin heals up Fin and starts heading south, so that Fin can fight Jacoban without dying. She heads south because I know what happens after taking Jacoban, and decide to get a head start on dealing with it. I also really love Jacoban's war cry. "Thunder Sword!"















Lovers move together, Beowulf kills the archer knight, Azel finishes Jacoban and gets the Thunder Sword(!) which he can't use (he'll sell it for Fury or Lachesis to take), and Fury finishes deals another blow to the Bishop, then goes to visit the nearby village.





Go ahead... get in. Whaddya think? Feel a little power swellin' in yeh veins? Makes work feel like kids play!



That'll be great for Fury, since her big downside is lack of Strength.



We finally take out that small army and do some cleanup in the north.



It was at this point that I realized that the villages they were supposed to be saving were really taking a beating. I need to move some stronger troops pretty quickly to save them.







So Cuan goes to save the villages, and the southern army moves to meet the main army. Let's seize.





Eltshan's Cross Knights are all that's left of Agustria's military might... If they'd just lower their swords, this'd all be over with.













Well, Lord Byron was always seen at Prince Kurth's side. But since the murder, he's disappeared. I hate to say this, but... There's suspicion that your father committed the murder.

What!? That's inconceivable!

There are all kinds of nasty rumors cropping up in Grandbell. The most prevalent one is that you and Lord Byron conspired to kill the prince. His Majesty's became so overwhelmed by it all that he's fallen terribly ill.

Kurth confided in my father for everything. What could my father gain from his death!? What about the two dukes who opposed the prince, Reptor and Langobart? I'd suspect them.

I also thought so, but there's no evidence on either one of them. And the Reptor faction currently has control of the Royal Court.

How about His Majesty's aide, Lord Alvis? What does he make of all of this?

I'm not sure. I don't think he's bitter towards you, but I can't say he's on your side either.

Is that right? Geez... my poor father. Aagh! I wish I could go straight home, but I have orders from His Majesty to guard this area. Claude, what should I do?

I'm currently on my way to Blagi Tower. It's on the island just northwest of here. I'm of Blagi descent. If I pray at our holy tower, the truth will be revealed to me.





...But you're Duke Reptor's daughter, right?

Look, all that fightin' stuff's beyond me. Besides, I'm in love with the priest, you see!

I'm at a loss with this child... Well, once I know the truth, I'll rendezvous with your troops. I hope we can return to the homeland together.

Me too, Claude. Thank you so much for everything!







Murder! Intrigue! Politics! So pretty obviously Reptor and Langobart are setting Byron and Sigurd up for the fall for Kurth's murder. And it's becoming more and more obvious that Alvis' actions are going to heavily shape what happens in Grandbell. Of course, I'm sure once Claude sees the truth at the tower of Blagi, everything will be ok. Anyway, we cut away to Agusty.







That's why I need ask you to watch over him.

No way! I can't look after a baby all by myself.

Please... I'll be right back. Would you just do this for me, Shanan? Please?

Yeah... alright. Whatever, I'll do it. But you better be back quick!

Thank you, Shanan. Celice, I'm sorry, babe. Mummy'll be right back, 'k?







Wait what, did he just teleport right on top of my guy?



Huh? Who are you? And how do you know my mother's name?

Heh heh heh... Prepare for your rebirth. Once we erase all your memories, we shall introduce you to your new husband. There's no use fighting it. This is destined to be.

W, what... are you d-d-doing? St, stop it!! Aghhh... S, Sig... urd...







The colorful wheel seems to brainwash Dierdre, stopping her resistance.











And they vanish without a trace. This scene always takes place in the same location, so you can have Dierdre and Manfloy walk all over a group of your units. They of course do nothing to stop as Sigurd's wife gets kidnapped. And this is why we sold all her stuff. She's now gone for a long time, possibly for the rest of the first generation! And in case she doesn't come back, she doesn't pass down anything to anyone generation two anyway, besides her money of course, which she'll have plenty to pass down now that she's sold everything.

In the manga, there's a pretty cool scene here where Manfloy breaks into Agusty, looking for Dierdre, and Shanan tries to fight him, but is obviously outmatched. He has a whole emotional scene because he couldn't protect Dierdre, though he manages to protect Celice.

Anyway, we end our turn and check out Sivail.









Aha! You are teaming up with the enemy to overthrow Agustria!

Your Majesty! How could you say that!?

You got a problem with that? My father'd be so disappointed with you. A true knight doesn't sneak around stalling for time!

You're not even listening to me! Look, I... hmph. Okay, I'll get my men ready. I'll let you know I'm proud to be a Holy Knight of Agustria. If I'm to die, I'll die fighting. Your Majesty, please watch over Silvail while I'm gone.









I cannot begin to tell you what your years of loyalty has meant to me... This battle will determine the fate of our nation. Give it all you've got. Cross Knights, ATTACK!!



I'm taking command here! The rest of you strengthen your defense of the castle!







God Shagaal is a douche. So throughout the manga, they play really heavily on the relationship between Eltshan and Lachesis. Like they REALLY lay it on thick that they're in love. At the same time Fin is clearly in love with Lachesis, though Lachesis is extremely cold to any man who isn't her brother. So as the army is fighting in Agustria, Lachesis worries herself sick, literally, thinking about what Eltshan's doing and worrying about Sigurd having to fight him. Fin acts as her caretaker (Cuan actually originally ordered Fin to be Lachesis' guard), bringing her food and talking to her when she refuses to see the rest of the army. Eventually you get to the part we're currently at in the game, and Lachesis decides to try to talk to sense into Eltshan, confessing her love for him and trying to get him to join Sigurd's army. Well, we'll see where that goes in the next part I suppose.