Part 4: (Part One, Chapter 1) Another Daein Paradise
Tellius - The year 648 - Early summer
To think, we went an entire chapter without being shown a map of the "world"! Fire Emblems: Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn are set on the continent of Tellius, and here we get to see what it looks like.
But things have changed since last we saw this map. Most notably, that one blue country seems to have completely engulfed that one red one.
Daein's future is now subject to the whims of the empire.
Begnion's occupation forces have gathered all of Daein's men of fighting age and put them to work in labor camps. Their work is brutal and void of purpose, designed to break both body and spirit. The remaining population faces poverty and starvation as the fields lie fallow. A band of young heroes has escaped the Begnion army to form a group called the Dawn Brigade. Fighting for a free Daein, they alone have stood against Begnion's forces. They alone have shouldered the hopes of their nation.
Among the company is a young girl named Micaiah, who is said to possess mystical powers. The people of Daein have come to know her as the "Silver-Haired Maiden." They have come to think of her as the savior for whom they had been waiting.
Begnion's forces have tried time and time again to capture and silence the Dawn Brigade. However, Micaiah's ability to sense impending danger has thus far allowed the Dawn Brigade to evade the empire's grasp.
Things are about to get a little confusing in this LP. But only a little.
I'm away from my primary computer all this week. I have access to another computer that is quite capable of emulating Radiant Dawn (though you may have noticed the screenshots are ever so slightly smaller and seem to have too much contrast), but of course, I don't have my save file. Therefore, this update and the next will take place in what is essentially a separate continuity; the plot is (obviously) unchanged, I will continue to talk about relevant things and new characters will be appropriately showcased, but the stats of our guys will be a little off. When chapter three rolls around, I'll recap (to what extent is actually necessary) what our actual stats are, and we'll pick up our real party again. I can get away with this because this is only the second mission.
Naturally, I expect to get unbelievable level ups with the dummy party.
It's like you said. We didn't have a choice. We had to save Nico and the townsfolk. But I admit, getting spotted by those Begnion soldiers was unfortunate. Still, I'd do it all over again. The worst part is they know we're near. They could find this hideout as easily as they found our last one.
I just don't get it. This is our country... Why do we have to live in hiding, like prisoners in our own land? Come on, you know why. We lost the war... and Crimea won. It's not "our" country anymore. End of story. Except that Crimea walked away after winning, leaving those heartless Begnion dogs to rule our country for the last three years! The occupying soldiers march around like they own the place, doing whatever they want, and no one dares to stop them!
At last, the Dawn Brigade is all present. But you are unusually late. Were you delayed?
I think our fame's catching up with us. Begnion patrols are everywhere. It took us a while to avoid them.
I've never seen so much Begnion activity in this area before. Is there... something we should know?
And Begnion soldiers spotted us as we made our escape. I'm sorry. We only wanted to help. We were careless. We'll worry about that later. More importantly, Micaiah, were you seen healing anyone with Sacrifice? I'm afraid so. You can't allow anyone to know what you can do. Healing without any tomes or staves is a rare gift--almost unheard of. If anyone saw you doing it, you'd be given away immediately, and I don't know if I could keep you safe. I know, Sothe. I know you know, but you keep doing it! This place isn't safe anymore. We should leave at once. Correct. Ah, but it would have been nice to eat just one meal in peace...
It looks like this really is the least guarded path, then. Even so, it's swarming with soldiers. There are more coming up behind us! We'll be trapped if we don't move quickly! We can't wait for Sothe. The stairs by the church lead to the marketplace. We can break through there. I'll go first and secure the way. Micaiah and Leonardo, cover my back! Remember to keep your distance from the enemy. Team up and bring them down one by one! We'll be careful. Leave it to us. Edward, you bring up the rear. Your skills have improved, but you're still new to fighting. Don't rush the enemy. Just focus on surviving their attacks. Got it? Yeah, yeah, I got it.Hah! Edward, surviving attacks! Good one!
Well, I guess that for the time being, Edward is able to take one, maybe two hits before having to pull back. But seriously, if anyone here should be dedicated to taking hits, it's Nolan;
Nolan joins on a fairly high level - 9, when your highest level at this point is 4 or 5 - but he's not really overlevelled, and he's certainly not an experience waster.
Nolan is a fighter. Fighters are all about axing people in the face, all the time. If you have a fighter in your party and he's not either a) axing people in the face or b) dying, then you're Doing It Wrong™. Nolan's axing habit is facilitated by his high strength and defense, and he has fairly decent skill and speed to boot. He's also a big bucket of HP. Oddly enough, despite being a fighter, Nolan is less likely to gain strength in a level up than any other stat. His tendency is actually toward Skill and Speed and Luck. Frankly, from the numbers alone, you'd be forgiven for thinking Nolan was an oddly tank-like myrmidon… who uses axes. This is probably the reason why Nolan is one of the more popular of the Dawn Brigade characters among people who like to argue about which characters are the best.
He also is a clear example of the trend we're going to see in characters in Part One; weird stat growths that don't seem to jive with their class roles. It doesn't sit well with most players. For now, though, Nolan is pretty beastly.
Nolan also has a non-Shove skill equipped; Nihil. It will be almost completely useless for a good long while. A goooood, looooong while. I'm going to tell you now what it does because otherwise I'm going to forget - it cancels all of the enemy's skills in combat (other than Nihil; if both combatants have Nihil, no one gets to use any skills). It'll be ages before we see an enemy with skills worth annihilating.
So. Mission time!
Note the boss (and the soldier next to him), paying particular attention to the golden glow under their feet. This mission's objective is "Escape!". To escape, you must move a unit onto said square, and select Escape; this removes the unit from combat. When your party leader (Micaiah) escapes, you win - though let's just say that it is in your interest that everyone else escapes first.
That also means that the boss and his friend will absolutely never ever ever move off those squares. The more you know!
Note also this house and its inviting open door, to which sending Leonardo is our first action of the mission.
You've done so much for Daein's poor. It's time we did something in return.[Received a Vulnerary!]
It turns out that some people appreciate everything we're doing for them, and will help us out with supplies, money, and in a few cases, their sword arms.
Our plan for the opening of this mission will be for Nolan and
Here we can see the plan; Nolan will take the left side - by far the more dangerous - and Edward will take the right. We will be using our turns to heal, with Micaiah either providing additional heals or offensive backup, and allowing the enemy to throw themselves against our counterattacks. Thus positioned, we begin the enemy turn, and they immediately ruin our plan.
That soldier that Nolan was pestering has a spear - but it's a special spear, a Javelin. It's a tad stronger than the Bronze Lances these guys use, and far less accurate, but the real talking point is that it can be thrown, giving it a range of 1-2. It also gives you a fairly flashy animation when you gear up to throw it. Now, Fire Emblem AI, as we discussed before, loooves attacking people who can't attack back. So when faced with Nolan, who is within counterattack range, and Edward, who is not, he goes after Edward. Edward, who has also just been attacked by the soldier on his side.
Fortunately, it misses.
Here's how we look. Nolan makes his position regarding the Javelin Guy astoundingly clear. Edward chugs some heals, and Micaiah passes some health around to Nolan.
As of the start of the second enemy phase, here's how we look.
A lot of things happen in quick succession during said enemy phase that I'm not sure I can accurately summarize, but I'm pretty sure it involved a lot of murder.
Here's Micaiah disposing of one of the last remnants of the initial force. Shockingly, her 100% Hit% spell connects, and she levels up.
Not exactly typical Micaiah fare, but I'll take it. Oh, wait, this isn't my main file…
Looks like Leonardo's caught up to the group. With the last enemy cleared, we're free to send Nolan to visit the big building.
But I'm helpless. I don't have your strength or courage. This axe... You should have it."This thing? You kidding me? The hell do you do with this? Throw it at people?!"
"Well, actually…"
[Received a Hand Axe!]
The Hand Axe is to Axes as the Javelin is to Spears - it's a throwable variant of the weapon with the drawback of being less accurate offsetting the fact that it's a goddamn boomerang axe.
For his part, Edward steps to the front of the chokepoint, that he might kill some more guys.
This archer is wise to our tricks, though, and leaves Edward a tad hurt.
Well, Edward can dispense hurt, too.
As it happens, exactly enough hurt to produce murder. Micaiah patches Edward up, and Edward awaits the move of the fighter to the north.
It doesn't come.
Fine by me. Micaiah steps forward, resolving to make light of the situation, and Edward finishes him off.
This guy is out of our problem range. Let's make our move on the exit. We use turn 6 to line everyone up, and on turn 7…
Leonardo begins the proceedings.
Note the Steel Sword showing up in red type. When you see an item in red in an enemy's inventory (it doesn't necessarily have to be their equipped weapon), it means that they will drop this item when dead.
Leonardo and Nolan, between them, reduce Isaiya to 3 HP.
And Edward…
…is just showing off.
But seriously, though; a big strength in the 2D Fire Emblem games was the quality of the spritework, especially of the larger mounted units and the critical hits. It's always a fear, when a series treads into 3D for the first time, that this nuance and beauty will be lost in the transition; but I think it's safe to say that the animations in the Radiance series of Fire Emblem titles are more than worthy of their pedigree. Situations like this attack just now, which wasn't even a critical hit but just a thing that happens sometimes with myrmidons (many classes have their own slightly-flashier-than-usual animation that does nothing other than look a bit cooler), really drive this home.
We also get a kinda-good-I-guess level up. I hope we do better than this when we get back to the main file.
You may note that Edward is on a slightly higher level than you expect; he got a lot of accidental crits when I did the Prologue on this file, and he stole Micaiah's level.
So, yeah, we murder this guy and take his Steel Sword. It's a little heavy for Edward to use effectively, though, so we'll stick to his Iron Sword for now.
The guy next to Isaiya's corpse throws a Hand Axe at Edward in a last ditch attempt to save himself. It fails. It's now time to waste this guy and get the hell out of town.
As if to drive this point home, reinforcements start pouring in every turn from this point on.
Not to worry, though; a Nolan Face-Axing and some light magic later…
The way is clear. First Leonardo, then Edward stands on an escape tile and hits the Escape Button.
They are actually shown running off toward the edge of the visible gamespace, which is neat, I guess.
Alright! We get it! Time to go; Nolan, then finally Micaiah make a run for it. Whew!
My "shit goin' down in the hood" sense is tingling.
Oh no…
Nico!
They're after you again, aren't they?
Are you and your friends all right?
…did Ted Woolsey break into Intelligent Systems' offices on a dare and change one line in this game to see if anyone would notice?. Was he accompanied by an artist friend who drew facial hair on a generic soldier, with the same rationale? Who the hell knows, man.
Oh no…
Quickly--don't dawdle. You must escape. You're our only hope. Thank you so much!
Wait! There they go! Catch them!
Oh no…
What are you stopping for? W-well, they... You won't get past us! We stand by the Dawn Brigade. That's right! Goddess protect the Dawn Brigade!Oh no…
What?! You're letting this rabble stop you? Ready your bows! Nobody defies the will of Begnion!
You stupid, stupid child. You just had to go shouting your name, didn't you?!
Something tells me that if they're willing to shoot children, they won't mind being called savages.
Someone! Someone, help him, quickly! Please...this child is dying! Pay heed! This is what happens when you meddle in Begnion affairs of state. Remember it well! I didn't realize that the Begnion Empire's affairs of state included murdering children in the street! Don't point your fingers at us. We're just doing our job. If you're upset, blame the Dawn Brigade! They made this happen!
What's happening?! What does she think she's doing?! Hey, you, step away from that child!
Grandfather: It...it's a miracle. We've seen a miracle today!
That was Sacrifice... That girl! She must be the Silver-Haired Maiden. Only she possesses Sacrifice!
Stop right there! After them! We can't let them get away!
…yes, because this worked SO WELL for you five minutes ago.
What is wrong with you people?! Did you hear me?! Clear a path, or you'll end up like that kid!
…
…
…oh no…
You sniveling idiots! Why are you just standing there?! Give chase. Now! Yes, sir! We would like to, sir, but...the townspeople are blocking our way. Oh...I see. The townspeople are blocking your way. You dullards!
…
Clean out those dirty ears and listen to me! You are soldiers, and I am your commander! You will follow my orders promptly and without hesitation. Understand, you useless vermin? Now, move! Unbelievable! If it's not one thing, it's another. Why am I always stuck leading the buffoons?
Are you awake now? Thank goodness. Do you see? This is why I told you not to use Sacrifice... We sure showed them in Nevassa, huh? I guess we can't go back there... not for a while anyway. I'm so fond of Nevassa. It's where we all met. It feels like my only real home. We will return...someday. We will, Micaiah. I know you, and you have a way of getting what you want. Because you're always there to help me get it, Sothe.D'awwwwww.
Coming up next time: A thief engages guards in combat while everyone else steals things!