Part 16: Dance in the Skies Part 1: Sailane-Throve (continued)

Chapter 4: Dance in the Skies (continued)

Now, we're finally done with promotions (for now). I should note that I had Dew give money to Azel at one point, and had Claude heal someone because I screwed up Arena manipulation. Then Sylvia danced so they could actually leave the castle this turn. Of course, this means that she could not, so she'll be behind for a bit. Now, we have a few quick conversations to do.







I made it back to Grandbell and I had every intention of telling His Majesty the truth. But Reptor's people kept me from the king... Now, I too have been branded a traitor.

Claude, I've had it with them! I tell you, I'm just about ready to storm Grandbell to expose those bastards!

Sir Sigurd, violent tactics never yield positive results. We have to stick this one out.

But Claude...

I know exactly how you feel. Unfortunately, I believe this one is in fate's hands. ...There is little we can do right now.

So things didn't go well with Claude clearing our good name in Grandbell. I'm not exactly sure how Reptor and Langobart can just say an esteemed lord of Grandbell like Claude is a traitor and have that be the end of it. Especially when he's the only one who can actually communicate with Blagi. Next, we have Aideen and Midir.







Yes. I bought it specifically for you. Silesia's Pegasus Knights are fierce opponents. Now you'll be able to properly defend yourself.

My lady... I still feel like I'm in a dream or something. Being with you is all I ever wanted in life...

I've also felt the same way, Midir. I had wanted to say something to you for so long. Just call me Aideen, okay? Now, don't get yourself hurt out here. I'll be praying for you.

This conversation only appears once Aideen and Midir are lovers. Likewise, she can have a conversation with Jamka or Azel if she's in love with them at this point. She gives Jamka the Hero Bow as well, and Azel will give her the Rescue staff. She can also get the Rescue Staff from Claude if she's in love with him in Chapter 5. These are actually the only ways to get the Rescue Staff, so that's something I won't be showing off in this playthrough. Now, let's look at the Hero Bow.



Standard Hero Weapon fare at this point, but coming in a chapter where there are quite a few flying enemies, it'll be great. This weapon also allows Midir to reliably kill most enemies, so he's no longer a crappy unit! Lastly, we have Azel and Tiltyu.







I need to ask you something.

Me?

Is that okay? It's just that... Well, I've known you all my life, right? And I've got no one else I can talk to about this.

Yeah, sure. What's the problem?

Well... it's like... I've just been kinda followin' Claude around, right? But I'm startin' to wonder if it was such a good idea.

Why?

I don't know. It's just that everyone acts kinda funny around me. And no one ever talks about my dad when I'm around.

Really? Yeah, that'd suck. But I think everyone likes you, Tiltyu. Everybody's just not sure how to act around you. That's all. Just be yourself! People'll come around. You'll see.

Yeah, you're right. Thanks, I feel a bit spunkier now.

Hahaha! You're too much, Tiltyu! Come find me anytime you need someone to talk to, okay?

Will do! Thanks, Azel!

Unfortunately, the fact that they previously knew each other is about as much background as we get on these two. The manga shows some flashbacks of Azel pulling pranks on her when they were children, in a teasing-your-crush manner. The music here is called Tinny's Theme, though we haven't actually met Tinny yet, and won't for some time.



For whatever reason, this conversation also boosts Tiltyu's max HP by 5 points.





So we end our turn in a sort of big mob in front of our castle. I also took this opportunity to point out the Silesian mage blocking us from heading to Silesia now.











This cracks me up. The ferocity of a wind mage is apparently moving one or two space forward, then ending turn . We also get another new enemy army theme.







So you can see we have a few villages under attack, though none of them are in any real danger of being destroyed in this chapter.



We also have the Pegasus Knights advancing a bit.







Heheh. This is getting interesting. Wouldn't you agree, Pamela?

Indeed. The fugitive army is quite a surprise though. They may prove to be a real threat. So you think our takeover of Silesia will go smoothly if Duke Maios can just draw them in?

I do. I've already reached a private agreement with Grandbell. Andre's reinforcement troops should be arriving shortly. Heh heh... Pamela, the day I am to become Silesia's next king is not that far off.

Yes, it shall certainly come.

Huh, Pamela looks pretty much exactly like Deetva. This is probably one of the worst cases of sprite recolors in the game. And it actually gets worse. I think 5 or 6 different enemies all use this same sprite, and they don't look very different at all.



Now here's a little bonus scene that I'll show off, but not actually trigger in game. It gets triggered if you have Sylvia end her turn next to Fury at all in this chapter, and neither of them nor Levin have a lover.





I seeee. So you don't mind if him and I go out??

No, I don't mind... (?)

Really?? You're not pretendin' t'not like him or somethin' are ya?

Pretend? What ar-... why would I need to pretend??

I don't know. Well, then I'm goin' after him.

Umm... whomever is to be the next queen of Silesia needs to have a little grace and dignity like our own Queen Rahna.

So you're sayin' I'm no good somehow!? How rude!

No, I'm just...

Hmph, Fine! You just wait and see!

......

So from this conversation, both Sylvia and Fury get love points with Levin, though Sylvia gets much more, which is why we won't be triggering it. There's a significant chance that Sylvia can then fall in love with Levin by mistake if we take too long after triggering this conversation. I think this is also one of the first, if not the first time that one of the Lover tracks is used in game. There are four of these Lover tracks in the game, though the last two are essentially the same as other tracks we'll hear in Generation 2. I'm not a huge fan of the first two. Anyway, back to what we're actually doing in this chapter.

















So we move forward, have Alec and Noish grab a bit of hit EXP from that bandit, then have Fury finish him off and grab the village. The villager here explains the magic weapon triangle, which works pretty much exactly like the physical weapon triangle.



So moving on up, a lot of mages target Lachesis, but she's kind of godly now, so they don't do much damage.



Unfortunately, she can still be put to sleep by the mini-boss here. Luckily, Levin is now carrying the Restore staff from Chapter three, so he can cure her pretty easily.



And Aideen can use up the last of that Silence staff to stop the mini-boss from sleeping anyone else.





















Something I love about this game is that the Restore staff has 10 range. In future installments of the series, it only has one range, so you have to be right next to someone to cure them.













So we do some more pushing forward, still trying to get some EXP with Dew and Tiltyu, since they're among the few units who have yet to promote. These Wind Mages really aren't anything special. Being mages, they die in one round pretty easily from most units, though they can do decent damage in return. Of course, Hero weapons will generally kill them before they can get a hit in, and the Reserve staff can heal anyone who gets hurt.















So this is actually where the player can find out a bit how holy blood inheritance works. And of course, we wouldn't want to do any forbidden incest in any of our pairings, like Aira and Holyn, or Sylvia and Claude, that'd be crazy…









So we finish moving forward for this turn, and have Alec and North get ready to go towards Silesia. They won't be able to catch up with the rest of our units by now, and even if they could, they wouldn't be any help in combat. Of course, at the time I didn't realize that having them wait down here is pretty much pointless, but more on that later.

















We have some of our lower leveled units grab some EXP, and then have Aideen get some money from the village so that she can afford to repair some of the staffs I've been spamming with her.









And we get some more information about what holy blood does. Nice that they thought to tell us this after only four chapters.







Here we have Dew give Aideen some more money since he gets some EXP from that, and won't be able to actually get a kill on any of the remaining enemies this turn. Plus Aideen can always use the cash.



Oops, looks like I forgot to repair the Reserve staff at the start of the chapter. Well, maybe this will make this section a bit more challenging at least.







Lex unfortunately manages to miss this guy four times.







And Sigurd misses this one with the second hit. I suppose it was bound to happen eventually with only 90% hit.







And now all that's left is the silenced mini-boss who can't do anything to us.





The Pegasus Squad moves ever closer. We should be fighting them pretty soon.



We've given Beowulf the Wing Clipper, so he'll be able to kick some ass against these guys.





That is, if he doesn't miss both times.







Dew snags the mini-boss kill for some decent EXP.





So we should be fighting these guys in full force next turn. Now we'll just have to hope they don't target and kill our weak units.











Fortunately they just go for Midir and Jamka. I think it's kinda cool that the Pegasus AI goes for the archers who can kill them the most easily.







That's Sigurd's son, dammit!



Oh right, and I guess his son if he were to have one with Deirdre. That jerk. Let's take a look at Deetva now, since we'll be killing her this turn, hopefully.



This Prayer Ring will be bothersome. We'll need to kill her in one fell blow, as weakening her will make her nearly impossible to finish off.



So we just have Brigid kill her in one shot with Ichival.

































And more killing everyone with no problems at all. By this point most of our units are so powerful that we can take out entire armies in one turn with little to no trouble. Especially when several units get effective crits against that army.



Anyway, our army ends up like this, ready to advance and kill yet another army, as well as the bandits in the north.





This village has another secret event if we visit it with Sylvia. More on that later.



Over in the mountains, we have a lone mage. What does this silly man think he's doing all by himself?



Oh, that. I believe this is our first time seeing a siege tome, aside from the one Sandima had in Chapter 1. On its own, it's not too bad, though several of them together can be quite dangerous.





The first of the next army decides to commit suicide by attacking Lachesis.







Oh wait, never mind, it's a different village we need to visit with Sylvia. There are just so many villages here, it's difficult to not get confused.





And Claude will need the money from this other village to keep Reserve repaired.







Well that was informative I guess.













Now that we get closer to Throve, we get a little scene there.







So the bridge that we needed to cross to get over to Throve is now gone. How are we gonna get there now?











The enemy now has quite a few Blizzard tomes that they'll try to hit us with. Luckily they miss more often than not.



So yea, no bridge. Well, there are two ways to solve this problem.



We can take this bridge to the south…







And cross over the mountains up to Throve. Now, the thing is, unpromoted mounted units can't cross the mountains. I think this is probably the reason why they started out Sigurd pre-promoted, because if he weren't, and the other way across the bridge were unavailable, the game could become unwinnable. We'll get to the other way across in a bit.



So Fury finally reaches and kills this chump without breaking a sweat.





Unfortunately, nobody can reach this bandit yet, so we just use the Earth Sword for I believe the first time in this LP. As you can see, it healed whatever damage she had on her before.





Once again, we end our turn, far away from any threats.







Midir actually took quite a beating from enemy Blizzard users. Luckily the AI is too stupid to both move and cast Blizzard on the same turn, so I could keep him out of range of the third wind mage that could kill him.















And we slowly work our way forward, still unable to cross this bridge. However we can use two ranged attacks to kill some of the people congregating near the river, and Fury can fly across and back to take out a few guys before the rest of the party can cross.





Ah, now this is the village that Sylvia needed to visit.







At this point the ROM of this game will freeze. To fix this, you'll need to restart the game (not the ROM, but the game itself).





























The Defense Sword is pretty good, especially for Sylvia. It's not the best offensively, but the defense is great for a unit with Prayer. This is especially useful for the arena, since you can change weapons at will mid-fight, so you can more easily get her down into Prayer range.









So that's how we get across, we have Dew unlock the bridge by ending his turn next to it.





Now we have a few units snipe the armor knights across the river.



And they respond in turn by killing themselves.







Now we start having Lachesis and Aideen Return and Warp people back to our main castle. Obviously after Throve we'll be heading to Silesia.









Oh, another one of these. Yea I still have no idea what they're saying. You can make out their names at least.



So Dew finally catches up to the rest of the gang…





And the bridge is back down.









Now we clean up the rest of the enemy army here, and get ready to attack the boss.











Naturally Levin attacking the boss starts a conversation.







Unfortunately, as you can see from the HP, everyone attack has either missed or been neutralized by Big Shield.







Finally, a single blow successfully connects.







And we manage to score the kill with Tiltyu. She actually has a really tough time this chapter, since Wind > Thunder on the weapon triangle, but luck was with us here.











So we do some healing, we do some warping, and we seize.





All the townsfolk are rejoicing!

...I don't understand. I thought for sure you all considered us the aggressor here.

Listen here. Lord Maios was nothing but a tyrant. Plain and simple. There is not a Silesian alive who does not have the utmost of adoration for Queen Rahna.

Wow. You don't say? I tell you what... I'm going to leave things in your hands. I'm sure you'll be hearing word from Queen Rahna in a day or two. But until then, I think the people should have a hand at governing themselves.

Understood. Queen Rahna is a veritable jewel of this great land. Please keep her from harm.

Yes, I will protect her to the absolute best of my ability.







By now the units we've sent back have made it up to the bridge. They'll be waiting there for a while. On enemy phase…







Pamela, it's time to prove your worth. Now go lead your Pegasus Knights to victory! You're to capture Silesia Castle before Sigurd can provide reinforcements.

Yes sir!









No need to worry. My knights can handle Pamela's squad.

Are you sure of that, Mahnya? I've heard Pamela is quite a fierce warrior.

Yes, she is a formidable opponent. But a Falcon Knight never prepares to enter a losing battle.

I'm sorry, Mahnya. I'm just trying to understand your feelings. I...

Your Highness, this is the only life I know. Please, you needn't get so emotional. I need to get going. Pegasus Knights, get into formation!





So the two Pegasus Squads take equal and opposite formations, ready to do battle. The stats between the two squads are actually quite similar, so a straight fight between them will have the outcome rely on luck quite a bit. But more on that next time. I was too lazy to do another table with people's stats, so I just took some screen caps. On the second page, the stats are Str, Mag, Skl, Spd, Luck, Def, and Res, in that order.