Part 25: (Part Two, Endgame) This is not how sieges are supposed to go

Having anticipated Queen Elincia's attack, the majority of Duke Ludveck's forces left Felirae.





Lucia, foreseeing a possible attack on the capital, arranged for Queen Elincia and Princess Leanne to be secretly moved to Fort Alpea.



She is captured in the dead of night while attempting to contact an informant.

Queen Elincia receives the sad news the next morning.



Elincia's Gambit? Oh, I know, it's

[Ally - HP < 70% : Mend]
[Ally - HP < 70% : Physic]
[Ally - HP < 100% : Mend]
[Ally - HP < 100% : Physic]
[Foe - has Crossbow : Attack]
[Foe - any : Attack]







He's probably marching his troops toward this fortress as we speak. Since it's come to this, I'd like to stick around and help. Let me know if you need me.

...I see. Thank you ever so much. Sir Haar... I have one more question. What about Lucia? Have you heard from her? Is she safe?

We found a man's body in the village safehouse. We believe he was her messenger. We also found this...

No! This is... This is Lucia's hair! But... How?

Well, we assume that Ludveck infiltrated her network of spies and captured her. This is his way of letting us know. It also means she's still alive, which means we still can save her. Queen Elincia, it's up to you to determine the best course of action.

Y-yes, I... I know...



Your Majesty! But...you are the queen! It's much too dangerous! Please, assign a subordinate to this duty!

I will not. It is my indecision that has allowed the rebellion to come this far. I refuse to run from this problem any longer.



Lucia, I'm sorry. Somehow, I promise you... I will save you!

---



Wh-whaaat?!

Somehow the enemy has found out that I am hiding here. My two fine friends... You must escape.

I...sing...and h-help...Queen Elincia!

No! Under no circumstances! I won't allow any such thing!

I...like help...Q-Queen...Elincia.

Now, now. When my lady makes up her mind, nothing in Tellius can sway her. And me? I'm sure you wouldn't mind having these old bones on the battlefield.

Sir Nealuchi... Honestly, I couldn't... Sigh...

Wait until you see me... Even at my age, I'll be one step ahead of those freshly hatched whippersnappers.





Oh hell yes.





Amiti is Elincia's personal Brave Sword. With three important differences: a) It's a little under twice the Mt of a Brave Sword, b) it has infinite uses, and c) having it equipped gives +3 Def and +3 Res. Needless to say, only Elincia can even have it in inventory.

All of which brings us to the base, where there's a bit of talking to be done...



At this hour? Who could it be?



Calill! What brings you here?

Well, you see... Lady Lucia asked me to give you a hand if you ever found yourself between a rock and a hard place, Your Majesty. She instructed the workers here at Fort Alpea to notify me if they thought that you needed any kind of help.

Lucia did?

Lady Lucia has been taken, Your Majesty. But I think she'll be fine. Actually, I know she will. She had the brains to set this up in advance, so I know she has a good head on her shoulders.

Yes, you're right. Thank you, Calill.

Save the thanks for until after the duke of Felirae is taken care of. We can hold the party at my place.

Um... Sure...?

And with that, Calill joins our party. There's one other person waiting, though...



Lucia handpicked each one of them.

Lucia and that... That official with the curly blonde beard. What was his name?

You mean Count Bastian?

Yeah, that's the one. Bastian, count of Fayre. He's usually considered the premier political mastermind of Crimea. But Lady Lucia's proving to be no slouch herself.

Yes. I really don't deserve them.

Come on... Don't sell yourself short.

What do you mean?

Loyalty isn't just a personal trait. Most of it hinges on who's calling the shots. What kind of commander you're under. My first commander was only concerned with lining his own pockets. And next was the Mad King himself. Man, I don't ever want to go back to regular military duty. If Shiharam hadn't asked me, I wouldn't have stayed so long. But he showed me what a leader could be: someone who makes following seem like the most natural thing in the world.

What about in Begnion's leaders and the apostle Sanaki?

The falcoknights report to the apostle, the dracoknights to the senate. Of the two, the falcoknights seem happier. I've never actually met the apostle personally. She sounds like a nice girl, but who knows?

I see.

Sometimes I get the impression that Radiant Dawn is trying to retcon the "canonical" jobs of various factions into what is now the names of the second tier jobs. For example, it used to be Begnion Pegasus Knights, now it's Begnion Falcoknights (and shouldn't it be Falcon Knight, anyway?). Just a thing.

But I'm just running at the mouth. I actually came to give you this.

A physic staff?

I want you to fight for all your loyal supporters. Losing your leader is tough, you know?

Sir Haar... Thank you so much.

[Received a Physic!]

Physic is a nifty stave that we've seen in the hands of the AI plenty times but never really been able to play with ourselves. It's basically a ranged Heal staff - it will heal [10 + magic stat] HP to any single target and has a range of [magic stat / 2]. It's quite, quite, useful, since it means you can heal your frontline units without having to retreat them - or, worse, bring your healer to the front lines.



There hasn't been much time for manipulating supports in Part 2, and Brom and Nephenee are the only two units even capable of forming a support. They work reasonably well together, too; they get a little boost to everything, but the +1 Atk/Def is quite helpful to both.



We waste no time hawking Elincia's old Slim Sword, all the Herbs that Heather stole that one time, and some other stuff we don't need anymore.



Today's bargains. Why anyone would want to buy another Slim Sword is beyond me. We pick up a Killer Axe for Haar, and a Recover staff for Elincia. We kit everyone out with the most powerful weapons they can carry; poleaxes and greatlances for all. We also buy a set of Steel knives for Heather.

Let's meet Calill.





Calill is a perfectly good sage. Her bases are plenty good and so are her growths. The problem, of course, is the same problem everyone else in this damn chapter has - availability. Calill doesn't get that many missions to train - but if she gets some good levels in those missions, she can be quite useful.



Calill also has innate Nihil.

At this point, I couldn't resist giving Nephenee two BEXP levels. She gets +1 HP, +2 Skill, +2 Speed and +1 Luck.



Another look at our records. Note Nephenee's not inconsiderable contributions.



We're done here.



Fall back, Your Majesty? No one can hold a candle to the speed at which the raven tribe retreats.

Ha ha... That's a relief.

Oh, Nealuchi.

---



I see... Lady Lucia must have arranged some way to warn the queen. But alas, even if they were to have all the energy and luck in the world, the Royal Knights wouldn't arrive for two days. In any case, there's no way we can lose, considering that we have a card which has yet to be put into the game.

...what is he planning?

---



What?! how could this happen?!





You scum! You helped the rebel army, didn't you?!



Those Daein murderers killed my entire family, and now the queen bows down and wags her tail at them! It's a disgrace!

Silence! You're the traitor here! Prepare to die.

Wait! Killing this man will do nothing to help our situation. We have to halt Ludveck and his men. They're already inside!



Uh oh. Lethe has invoked...



An allegiance roll call!









The one aspect of this chapter that kinda falls flat is that it doesn't manage to successfully drive home a feeling of the supposed "danger" Elincia is in right now. Sure, they all talk about it a lot, but the game mechanics just do not reinforce what everyone is saying. Sure, the Royal Knights are a very long march away, Lucia is captured, and all Elincia has around her are a few Crimean generics (of whom one has just been revealed to be a traitor) and a rag-tag band consisting of a farmer, a thief, a... whatever Nephenee's day job is, a wyvern-courier, and some laguz. It has all the makings of a very tense siege situation, except for the fact that this loosely organized rabble happens to be comprised of all the strongest characters in the chapter - some among the best characters in the game - and the supposed "saviours" in the Royal Knights aren't nearly as powerful as Elincia is making them out to be (although, admittedly, if you rely solely on Geoffey and Kieran they can fairly murder, but for one, who does that, and for two, neither of them are actually that survivable when things get going). Compared to another certain siege chapter we could talk about, the slightly-informed player will not be feeling any fear at all right now.

Related: We are going to hand this mission its ass.

Thank you, everyone. I am indeed the queen of Crimea, and a queen does not hide. Our enemies are fellow citizens of Crimea. But we can no longer sit idle as they destroy the harmony of our nation.

---



Ok, now that you mention it, Ludveck does have rather a lot of units.



How preciously naïve. We shall have to teach her that being overly optimistic can be fatal.

Let's take a better look.



As you can see, the numbers look intimidating but the layout of the map is hugely in our favour. To begin with, we will be defending the north-most region of the map using three chokepoints; one each at the foot of the left and right stairs, and the soon-to-be ledge in the middle. The left side will be held by Haar, the right by Brom and Nephenee (well, mainly Nephenee, Brom's there for support). Calill will hold the ledge; she's fragile but nothing can hit her from down there, and she can respond to any attempts by raining down fire from above. When we get a chance, we'll move the chokepoints down a little, file our guys onto the middle of the map, and prepare to push back down the right hand side of the map. Elincia will dip in and out of combat; her new sword represents a major boost in power, and she can easily kill most enemies before they can even get a counterattack in. That said, she's of more use as a healer; with her Mend and Physic staves she can heal anyone, anywhere, and get lots of EXP for it too!

The generics will be of little use to us; the archers may get the occasional hit in but really, they're just there as fodder. The generic healer will be as much use as the healers in the last chapter; we also get a sage with Bolting (and we can't take it off him!) who will mostly just stand there doing nothing.

The enemies are mostly nothing special, although you need to watch out for the archers and crossbowmen mixed in with the troops, and keep Haar out of range of the thunder mages.

There are two victory conditions; either we just survive for fifteen turns, or we "kill" (i.e. capture) Ludveck. I'm sure I don't even need to tell you which we're going to be going with. We are going to cut a bloody swath through the invading army, we are going to get a load of EXP for our guys, we are going to claim every goodie available for the taking, and by the time we're done, they will be digging in against us.



All of which said, Ludveck is no pushover. He has a bitchin' awesome throwing axe, so you can't just outrange him, and his defenses are not trivial.



He also gives his army an arbitrary +10% Hit/Avoid. Fortunately, we have +15%, so we have the advantage there. Ludveck himself has the advantage of matching the map affinity, so... oh who the fuck cares?



Here's something a little more worrying, though; he has Vantage, so we should make absolutely sure that we don't send anyone to attack him who can't survive a counter, even if they're finishing him off.



Let's get this show on the road.