Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn Part #48 - (Endgame, Continued)

Part 48: (Endgame, Continued)

Our first concern is the two archers in Daein's front line. Once we deal with them, there aren't any more archers until the very back, and they aren't going to factor into our plans at all.

The rest of the army moves up, and Reyson immediately uses a laguz stone.

We end turn and... hey, what's that in the top right corner of the screen?

An opportunistic swordmaster takes his only chance to actually deal damage to Tibarn.

Once again, I have completely forgotten to check my equipped weapons, and now Oscar is defending himself with a Javelin. Not that he minds.

Another guy goes for Tibarn, but at melee range, so Tibarn punches him good.

Nailah, and, more worryingly, Kurth, transform. Fortunately (and thank god), neither will actually move in this mission (which is a relief, because Nailah still has Celerity and Pass equipped), so they're not as big a threat as they might otherwise be.

The Other phase begins, and Skrimir and co start laying in to the Daein forces.

Between Skrimir and the horde, a good few kills are gotten.

Tibarn and friends clean up some guys too.

Our turn comes around. Oscar recovers most of his health, and-

-hm? Hey, look, it changed! It's now a large, glowing, pulsating, number 9.

...hey, wait a minute. Glowing? Pulsating? That blue colour? That ominous heartbeat sound?

It's a death counter, isn't it? The objective display is lying, isn't it?

...OK fine, I'll quit pretending to not know and cut straight to the point - yes, this is a killcount mission, and yes, the glowing blue pulsing heartbeating death counter implies exactly what you think it implies. The key difference between this and the last two killcount missions, however, is that all deaths count, be they enemy, other, or even friendly. The magic number is 80, and between the Greil Mercenaries, Skrimir and Tibarn, it won't be long before that number is reached.

This does, in fact, make what we have to do a bit harder. We have a few very specific subobjectives in this playthough, you see. All in good time. And speaking of time, we don't have a whole lot of it.

Oscar does his part by equipping the correct weapon and going to town.

Ten kills means Ranulf gets a slight headache. Don't worry, it doesn't affect his stats.

Astrid has reached something resembling full combat readiness. She's not quite as spectacular as Rolf, but she'll do in a pinch, and her superior mobility will serve her very well on big maps like this one.

The GMs generally clean up the middle, and Marcia heads east to see if she can't lure some guys away from Tibarn.

Reyson gets one of his awesome four way chants going...

And we use it to line everyone up in a nice diagonal line. Said line happens to be precisely on the edge of Zihark's range.

Soren has enough ranks in staves to start using Physic. This will earn him a nice amount of EXP as well as further boost his staff rank.

See?

Anyway, that's turn two. 14 deaths.

Aw goddamnit. Laura must have told all the Daein priests about how Ike is vulnerable to Sleep.

While lots of Daeins waste their time on the laguz, Zihark goes for, of all people, Haar.

He activates Adept, but accomplishes nothing except wasting three uses of an otherwise perfectly fine Tempest Blade. Goddamnit. That thing's valuable!

After 15 deaths:

Hey, just where do you think you're going? Do you think the high-and-mighty apostle should be traipsing around a battlefield, hmm?

That beauty from the Holy Guards told me to keep an eye on you. So, do me a favor and sit still, will you?

But I can't see anything from here! I have to know how my people are faring down there! I...I can't bear doing nothing! Hmm... I have an idea. You! Carry me to a place where I can observe the battle! Don't give me that look! You're the one who agreed to guard me, so do your duty and obey your orders! Come on, let's get moving!

Wait a minute... Is that what passes for beorc logic these days? No wonder you've lost your throne. OW! Stop that!

Are you going to obey me, or shall I have you chased back home in a cloud of feathers?

...oh, I can't wait to hear this one explained.

Anyway, lots of time is wasted on the laguz, and one guy gets a lucky crit in. So that's something.

Then it's the Other turn, and it's time for vengeance.

20 deaths:

Yep, I foresee a very happy ending to this fight.

The beasts and the hawks rack up a good few kills.

And two groups of paladins roll in to replace them. This exact formation of reinforcements will recur every few turns and serves only to slow the laguz down and feed them kills.

Skrimir also gets a few reinforcements of his own.

Ike is immediately cured of sleep. This battle would be over before he wakes up naturally.

Ike is annoyed by the Daein army pulling this shit a second time, so he takes his anger out on Zihark.

Zihark, what's going on here? Why do you sound so desperate? This isn't like you at all!

I'll take my secret to the grave. Besides, you know I don't like to complain. At your ready, Commander.

If you insist.

Seriously, I will never accept the physics of this landing.

Very astutely observed.

25 kills:

No, please, don't come near me... I don't want to hurt anyone!

It turns out that fighting really isn't Kurth's thing.

With the help of some Olivi Grass, Ulki is now ready to transform and help out.

Gatrie picks up another of his famous hilariously un-general-like levels.

In the course of wandering around and maiming bad guys, Marcia just happens to stumble across a Rescue staff. These, you might recall (we last saw one a few chapters ago) will teleport a unit from a square [mg/2] squares away from the wielder to a square adjacent to the wielder. It's a rank A staff, so only Mist can use it for now. We'll shortly be very glad we have this.

Soren's adventures in grinding experience and ranks by spamming Physic continue in earnest.

Some stuff happens, and we end turn 3 (28 deaths) thusly.

There are a few really low level units mixed in with the Daein army. Unlike chapter 10, where the low level soldiers served a purpose, here, they are just low level soldiers.

Now that Marcia has promoted, she can, of course, use Stun, as she gleefully demonstrates to the silly Daein soldier who attacked her.

30 deaths:

Micaiah? Micaiah, what's wrong?

Wait. I'm coming! I'll be right there!

Not weird at all.

Micaiah straight up leaves the battlefield, and Sothe follows.

Marcia gets a few counterkills and, thus, a pretty great level.

Also, Ike gets put to sleep again.

The Other phase goes the way Other phases usually do.

Killtacularly.

For some reason, Ena decides to waltz onto the battlefield. That's... great, I guess?

Three new hawks show up too.

Ena isn't joining our team just yet, but here are her stats anyway. Ena is, unequivocally, the worst dragon. Her stats are so completely out of line with what her "class" demands that she'd have fit in with the Dawn Brigade if she didn't join on such a high level. Red dragons, you see, employ physical attacks, using strength, but Ena here has less strength than magic, and less defence than resistance. What the hell is up with that? At the very least, Ena might be a pretty awesome tank, what with her naturally high HP, decent (if out of balance) defences, and unreasonably high magic (especially when transformed) allowing for great use of Imbue. Her other plusses are Earth affinity (although you don't get much of a chance to build supports with her) and a starting S-rank in Strike, for added attack power.

She still has all the skills she had in Path of Radiance. Boon, a skill unique to dragons, will restore the condition of all adjacent units each turn. Blood Tide increases the strength and skill of adjacent units by 5 - which is very nice indeed. Miracle and Renewal we've already seen, of course.

Ena will be completely useless this battle. She won't even reach any enemies.

In the course of all the murdering we do this turn, Mia gains an amazing level.

We get a lot of murdering done, and Ike is healed of sleep for the second time in a row.

And there's the karmic counterbalance to that last level.

And we're not done yet!

Goddamn laguz levels with their lopsided HP and luck...

Now we're done. End of turn 4, 47 deaths. We're on a roll.

The group of dracoknights near the Daein back lines charges forward. Jill is among them.

Rather than continue to victimise Ike, the Sleep guy decides to target a distant tiger instead. That's just great.

Lots of enemies attack Gatrie.

Lots...

And lots...

And Nolan...

And Edward...

And lots...

And lots.

Of course, not all of them survive.

The beasts and hawks get a few kills, Ena moves up, and it's back to our turn.

First thing's first. It's time.

Go forth, Heather! Fulfil your destiny!

The elusive Bolting tome is ours! (it's long range thunder magic, remember?) I don't know why it's so annoyingly difficult to get your hands on one of these, or whether it was an accident or deliberate gambit on the part of the developers that this one tome is so hard to get, but there you go. There are only three opportunities in the whole game to get one, and all of them involve stealing. And the problem with stealing is that Bolting is one of the heaviest weapons in the game (and the second heaviest tome), weighing in at 19 Wt, and thus requiring 20 strength to steal. There was one back in Part 3 Chapter 2, but good luck getting Heather to 20 strength by then - she starts with 15 but has only a 25% growth, and 3-2 will only be her fourth mission. This is the second opportunity, and you need to either get very lucky or invest resources to get Heather to 20 strength at this point. I got lucky, but normally you'll need to either promote her or throw her an Energy Drop. In both cases, you need to get in close and bait the mage with the tome into attacking with Elthunder, thus unequipping Bolting, and then move Heather in to steal it, which is a pain. The final opportunity is in the actual Endgame (like, the endgame), where you have access to Sothe, who will definitely have 20 strength, but the enemy holding the tome doesn't have any other weapons, so you need to Disarm him first and then steal it. It's a pain.

But we have it now! And it's going to sit right there in our inventory until it's needed.

Mist pulls Heather the hell out of there.

Nephenee, Soren and Haar all move up, and Reyson Vigors them all.

Haar flies over to Jill, and has a little chat.

This conversation is, in fact, identical to the one they could have had back in chapter 7, which we've already gone over, so I won't transcribe it all again. The good news is that Jill defects to our team! And good thing too, because she has an extremely important job to do...

...delivering the Blizzard tome to Soren. What, did I not mention that I gave Blizzard to Jill just so I could get it to Soren so I wouldn't have to have him use Bolting? Sorry.

She also takes the opportunity to murder the former owner of that Bolting tome with her handy Short Axe, despite the risk of being Elthunder'd in retaliation.

She still has her Paragon scroll, and accordingly levels up hella fast.

We have another task to accomplish this turn, but it requires us to murder guys first. Ranulf, now transformed, comes up to help.

Mia moves in to deal with Nolan. Thanks to his Nihil skill, she can't employ her ridiculous array of skills, so she falls back on the Killing Edge and its absurd crit rate.

The second hit triggers.

For certain interpretations of "numbers"...

Edward falls to Marcia.

Soren is Smited by Ike...

And shoved by both Ulki and Nephenee.

Until finally...

He gets into Blizzarding range of Pelleas. Yes, Pelleas.

Note that Soren has enough strength to wield siege tomes without suffering a speed penalty.

Who are you? That mark on your forehead... Is it a mark of Spirit Protection?

No. It's something rather different.

But that shape... It looks so much like mine!

Is that so? You might be more powerful than you let on. Still, I doubt this changes anything. Prepare yourself, Pelleas.

But wait! There's so much that I want to ask you!

It's not so much a "Blizzard" as a "really big chunk of ice followed by a blue cloud". It does the job, though.

But... For Micaiah... I must... I...must live...

...and that's that. Soren's in the middle of a lot of trouble, but... he'll live. Right?

I'm vaguely aware that Reyson is exposed, so Sigrun picks him up.

End of turn 5, 69 deaths.

An enemy dracoknight bears down on Sigrun, but she pulls through.

Suddenly, I'm not so sure about Soren...

Fortunately, the next attack misses.

Laura tries to pull that Sleep bullshit on Haar, but he's having none of it.

Oww.

Gallia takes a casualty.

A low level enemy myrmidon goes for Soren. This is just fine. He won't get a kill even if he hits, and when he's done...

Soren is surrounded on all sides.

The enemy has a Blizzard guy, too, but he's not as effective as Soren.

The Other phase starts.

The hawks and beasts clear up a few guys between them, but not enough to end the mission.

Mist heals Soren for as much as she can, then we get to taking our final turn.

Jill gets this guy out of Soren's way.

Ike and Gatrie dispose of Aran, Gatrie gaining a level.

Astrid takes out a guy...

Hmm...

In an attempt to make our last kill meaningful, Marcia goes after Kurthnaga.

Kurth is actually a lower level than Ena - somewhat surprising, given his status - but a lot more capable. Black Dragons, like Red Dragons, attack using strength, and Kurth, unlike Ena, actually has strength to back up his attacks. He's also quite durable, but a tad slow. With training - and some boosts - he can be formidable.

Kurth has the Night Tide skill, which increases the defence and resistance of adjacent units by 5. Pretty handy.

None of this stops him from whining when it actually comes down to it, though.

Well, here we go.

Dragons are the only laguz that can attack at range. It makes them that much more formidable.

Oscar comes up to help.

And he helps himself to a very nice level, too. Seriously, where were these levels earlier?

Soren takes the honours.

Oh, boy, does he take the honours.

Fucking ridiculous.

Mmm hmm.

And that's 80 kills. Cue the plot.

Ike... My head... It hurts so much... It's the medallion...

What do you mean?

The medallion is calling out to me... Please, Ike... Take me to the medallion...

Mist! Talk to me! Wake up, please!

I'll clear you a path! Take Mist with you! Get her out of here, quick!

Boyd...

Don't worry. I won't die here. You take care of yourself, all right? Hang in there, for me.

Boyd... I will. I promise.

Look after her, all right, Ike? Make sure nothing happens to her.

I will. Thanks for this, Boyd.

---

She collapsed, too?

I get it now. Anyone who has the spirit of order within them is affected by this light.

Reyson collapsed suddenly. I figured I'd take him to a safe place.

Rafiel fell unconscious as well. I thought I'd let him rest with Leanne. But then I found that she had collapsed too.

And you think the medallion did this to them? Mist?

My song won't work anymore... We're running...out of time...

What are you talking about?!

Call the apostle... She must sing the galdr of release... Hurry, before it's too late... Please, Ike... I can hear...a voice... It's inside my head... The voice is telling me...that we must not awaken the dark god through war...

A voice in your head? Mist, what is going--

Hey! Mist! Wake up!

Ulki! Do you hear me? Bring the apostle here at once!

Are you sure about that? Mist is saying that she should sing the galdr of release. She's saying that we should wake up the dark god!

The seal will break anyway. If that's the case, then we should take a chance on your sister and do what she says.

I agree with the hawk king. It's too late to calm the dark god back to sleep. It would take too long.

Do you think we'll be safe if the apostle wakes up the dark god? Didn't we fight a major war to prevent that from happening a few years ago?

I don't know. Are we safe now? But I did always wonder why Heron Queen Lillia passed down the galdr of release. She must have left it behind for a good reason. I'm willing to bet my life on it.

It's the only choice for our survival. Besides, we won't know if it'll work until we try.

All right... Let's do it.

---

...And a little extra baggage.

Oh, this should be good.

Now, now, Tibarn. I know you're angry, but we'll work it out when this is over.

Not a chance, Naesala. I hope you've said all your prayers and farewells. After I break every bone in your body, I'm going to rip your wings off and feed them to you before you get to die.

Again, still can't wait to hear this one explained.

You think I care, child? This is a laguz matter. You should see yourself out of it very quickly.

I will explain later. Put aside your past quarrels for now. Not to repeat the king of Kilvas, but we have more pressing issues we must attend to. Oh, and Hawk King? Don't ever call me "child" again.

Hmph... fine. You get to live now, Naesala. Once this is done, though, you're a corpse.

So, what would you have me do? I will use all the power at my disposal to help in this.

Sing the galdr of release for us. The song that was passed down from the heron queen to my mother, then from my mother to Mist.

But if I sing that galdr before the medallion, it would awaken the dark god...

This is what my sister said: We must not awaken the dark god with the spirit of chaos. We must use the galdr of release instead. The seal will break if we just leave the medallion alone. Please, sing the song.

Better than releasing the dark god through war, is that it? Very well. I shall try.

It's not working! But why?

A melody alone won't work.

I thought you'd all be on the battlefield, commanding the army! This just got really, really bad...

Mist and the herons collapsed because of that thing.

...I can hear the voice. Finally, we get to meet. I have been guided by this voice for so long... I have finally found my purpose.

Galdrar consist of melody and lyrics. Without both in harmony, the songs have a mere fraction of the power.

Maiden of Daein, the only part I was taught was the melody. I do not know the lyrics.

The words. They are passed down through the ages like a bloodline. Though time may pass, their meaning is never lost. When I heard you sing the melody, the words came to me.

I know this song. I've known it since before I was born. I am...

Suddenly, cutaway!

---

Um...

Goddess? That goddess? As in, Ashera?

What has happened? A thousand years have not passed. Why am I awoken early?

Indeed, my goddess. You have been asleep for 780 years. During that time, the world kept its promise to you for a mere two hundred years, at best. It was as you said. Neither the laguz nor beorc could resist the urge to fight. They are too weak. Though there are 220 years left until the thousandth year, there is no longer any need to wait.

Is that so? That is your analysis? Then I shall pass down my judgment. I will save them from themselves.

Know what I don't like? Where this is going.

---

Ike, you look so worried... What happened? Where am I, anyway? The last I remember, I was on the battlefield...

You don't remember?

I had a horrible headache, and my stomach really hurt... Then suddenly, it all went away.

---

Reyson?

Tibarn... What is this place?

Naesala? Why are you here? You betrayed us again, you dastard!

I had my reasons. I know you'll never forgive me, but I at least want you to hear me out. But it can wait. Tibarn and I will work out our problems first. You go ahead and sleep now, all right?

Very well... I'm glad to hear that...

Whatever my reasons, you won't forgive me. I know that. But I'm asking you to put your feelings aside for now. We're both worried about the herons, right?

You spineless piece of trash! You used that line on me before, remember?! And look what my forgiveness did to my people! You live now because I choose for you to live, Naesala. Once this mess gets sorted, though, I'll be wearing your beak as a trophy. Get out of my sight.

There's no need to worry. They're just not used to the spirit of chaos being so near. They'll wake up soon.

Er... wait... something's seriously not right here...

What?! What are you saying?! If you're not Micaiah, then where is she?!

I wonder where Ashera is? We must hurry and make our judgment. Wait...what are you doing?! No! You must consult with me first! No, don't do this!

---