Part 66: Chapter 21x: The Silencing Darkness (feat. Alkydere)

Chapter 21x: The Silencing Darkness (feat. Alkydere)


Apparently, there was something else hidden there other than the Sword of Seals. However, Pereth, one of Murdock's best lieutenants, was already inside the temple and waiting to ambush Roy.

I just don’t have the energy to comment on these lines anymore.

Because no Fire Emblem would leave a plot device just lying about in an abandoned temple when yet another battle could be squeezed in.



I will, however, comment on this. Not that it really takes much discerning to spot the problem here.



Yes.

I would have liked to be at Lord Murdock's side when he fell.

...We share your feelings.

However, we have an important mission from Lord Murdock. We must defend this Divine Weapon. Apocalypse must not fall into the enemy's hands!



Probably... I have only heard rumors that there is a spell book here that was placed to protect the Temple of Seals from intruders.

This place is guarded by Bern's troops as well. It is highly probable that the spell book that she speaks of is a Divine Weapon.

Video Game logic: If you’ve heard rumors that there’s something important in a random building off in the sticks, and the bad guys have lots of guards there for no explainable reason, the rumors are true.

Yes. We're going up against Zephiel soon. ...I want to have as many weapons as possible ready before we enter the castle. We have to get that book.

I also understand that there are numerous traps placed in the underground level.

Traps?

Yes. They are designed so well that it would be impossible for us to find them. Perhaps Thieves would be better at finding them... Please be careful.

Yes, Princess. We will be careful.

If you brought Miledy, she'll do the expositing in place of Guinevere, but the conversation is more or less identical.

And thus begins another great IntSys tradition. Branching dialogue... that’s identical in every meaningful way.



And we're dumped into the chapter from there. Welcome to the Shrine of Seals! If you recall, Athos brought us down here to meet Brammimond in Blazing Sword, and the place hasn't exactly brightened up much since he's been gone. Fortunately, this is a pretty easy chapter after the gauntlet of last chapter. There's all of a single Silence asshole, no siege tomes, and the traps are nothing to write home about. The enemies are the main concern - quite a few promoted guys with Silver and Brave weapons, some druids to fling around Fenrir, and a hell of a lot of Physic staves.

Sounds refreshing. Only enough bullshit to remind you of the previous bullshit IntSys has pulled, but other than that just a lovely meatgrinder.

I love that Fire Emblem is balanced such that a giant crowd of well-armed high-level enemies is a break.

Percival leads his team on the west side with Saul, Fir, and Gonzales in tow, while Roy takes the rest of the crew east, with Bors and Shin leading the charge.





That's not to say we're not quite well-armed ourselves. These are far from the only stat-ups to be handed out, but they're the most notable ones. Yes, Bors gets two pairs of boots. Our tank just got some augmented treads.

One pair goes to the squire who’s carting him around the map on a dolly.

I prefer to think of it as him wearing a pair of boots inside another pair of boots.



As mentioned, Bern isn't exactly skimping on weaponry here. Their choices in distribution are a little suspect, but you can't fault them for trying.



Echidna picks up the first level trading blows with a merc.



Seriously Bern, why are you giving all these cool toys to the generic mooks?



Oh yeah, and Ray's here. He's not a member of the cool kid's club, but I guess he'll get to play around with Apocalypse a bit?



On a similar note, Saul hits Light-S, so he'll have both the Saint's Staff and Aureola at his disposal.

I’m a fan of this whole thing they’ve got going here where the legendary weapons act both as plot coupons and as a means to encourage class diversity in your A-Team. It goes especially well with the GBA Fire Emblem’s whole thing where a unit can reach S-Rank in any (but only one) of the weapons they can wield. It goes less well in Radiant Dawn.

That’s only true in FE7 (and onward), actually. Right now, Saul has both Staves-S and Light-S. However, unlike in FE7 where it would give you 5 hit and 5 crit for getting your S rank, you don’t get any benefits aside from being able to use more than one divine weapon.



For some reason, I go after him with the Killing Edge even though I know she's still not strong enough to one-shot him with a crit. I meant to use the Al Sword but



To make up for my shame, have four Firs. Eight, really. She crits twice.



Saul pulls a luck level out of his ass. The RNG works in strange and mysterious ways sometimes.



Bors axes a knight in the face for an increase in his own strength and staying power.



The left side isn't really in any more danger per se, but having less man-power doesn't do them any favors either, especially when Gonzales is out of range for everyone except the merc Fir is attacking. He's not going to get killed or anything, but one generally hopes for a better frontliner than Saul, and those snipers/shaman/etc on the other side of the wall don't help things. Death by a thousand cuts and all.



Gonzales smash puny lancereaver man



The poor sniper never knew what hit him as Fir moves within 3 points of her strength cap.

I am still happy about this.



Our Silence friend finally notices Ray, and for once, he actually fails to land.

So much for “Silencing Darkness”.



Ray capitalizes on this and vampires the shit out of some knight from the other side of the wall. He maxes skill for the effort, which is better than nothing, I guess.



On a completely unrelated note, let's talk about these traps in the Shrine. Scattered up the innermost of the outside paths are flame tiles like the ones in 8x. Unlike the ones back then, there's nothing marking them as traps, and if a unit waits on them, they immediately lose 10 HP rather than randomly at the end of the turn. They're still not a threat.

If only because any experienced FE player will have their healers loaded down with healing staves at the ready any time someone gets a 1 HP paper cut. Still seems like a dick move to have them hidden like that since I’m assuming that Fire Emblem isn’t nearly as nice about not letting damage from traps kill your units like in the Advanced Wars where bombs, powers and cannons, etc can only leave a unit at 1 HP.

(It isn’t.)



Percy one-shots a shaman and gets one of what is probably among the best levels he'll ever get.



Also, the fire field doesn't mean a whole lot when we can just cross it in one turn thanks to the extra movement from the boots.



Swing and a miss. Are you guys even trying anymore?



Shin gets up close and personal, besting a horseslayer via Schrodinger's Horse.

Seriously, how do you miss that Nomads ride fucking horses when programming a weapon called a “Horse Slayer”!?

I tried to think up some kind of “it makes sense when you think about it from this perspective” angle about how classes are coded or something but... I got nothing. All I can think of is if a weapon only has the capacity to be effective against one specific class (or its promotion). I forget if the Horseslayer works against Troubadors, etc, however...

Not exactly. The Wyrmslayer, for example, is effective against both Wyvern Riders/Lords and Manaketes. Also, if you go back and look at the status screens, Miledy has a Dragon symbol, whereas Tate has a Pegasus, indicating that they’ve correctly tagged the proper units for Dragon weaknesses as well as flying ones. The horseslayer is just bugged, dude.



You may have noticed the chests lying around - these are the second trap. About half of them have elixirs, and the others will spawn a manakete right on top of you. Which chests are which is randomly determined, and since elixirs are hardly the most valuable prize, I just leave them be.

So between the trap damage being a non-issue besides potential healer experience, and the whole loot-screw, there’s no real reasons to bring a thief on a level that very explicitly says “Bring a thief”? Not sure if it’s IntSys being a bunch of dicks here or just not really understanding the player’s mindset.

Not exactly. Thieves can deactivate the traps (not the chests, obviously) by standing on them, but why you would want to use one of your deployment spots for that is beyond me.

But Elixirs are in limited supplyyyyyyy~



He was at 10 HP



Gonzales has the best one-track mind.



I redo all that damage to kill the general and this is all we get for the trouble.



The third and final trap is definitely the most useless of the bunch. Much like the fire traps, a bunch of tiles in the center area are spike traps, doing [10 - Unit's Def] damage to whoever steps on them. The only people in our army at the moment who even take damage from them are Roy (2), Lilina (3), and Echidna (1). Even Ray can laugh it off.

See, when you reach 10 points of Def, you are gifted a pair of Priests offscreen. They’re metal shoes that will save your soul.

Surely you mean “save your soles.”



Bors laughs at a puny Brave Sword and moves a step closer to invulnerability.



So hey, Pereth.



Kind of a dick because of Nosferatu, completely worthless otherwise.



Lilina starts...



I will show you its power.



...And gets an alright level. As far as Lilina is concerned, anything with Speed or Skill is good.



Fir takes us home.



We sure shut him up...

…

...Oh, that’s what “Silencing Darkness” refers to!





Pretty good comeback for the axe magnet.



...It is probably the Apocalypse spell book.

Apocalypse?

Yes, it is also known as the Silencing Darkness. Brammimond, the most mysterious of the Eight Heroes, used it.

Oh.

Brammimond... I only know his name.

We don't even know if Brammimond was male or female, old or young. None of the ancient scrolls say anything specific about Brammimond.

I see...

...



No, I was just thinking.

About what?

I was wondering why there's always some kind of trap where a Divine Weapon lies.

Because you live in a video game world.

...Perhaps it is to warn people that their power is too great to be dealt with lightly.

But still... The traps are so carefully set. There must be other reasons.

...

...I wondered about the same thing. Perhaps I shall look into it.

Yes... Please.



And that's the last one!

Now, ladies and gentlemen: the moment you've all been waiting for!



This must be the Sword of Seals.

Let's see... ...I can't seem to draw it from the stone.

It's sealed. You have to use the Fire Emblem.

Use it? How?

Princess Guinevere said that you just have to stick it into the opening in the handle...

*Screen flashes*

Whoa! What the...

The blade is glowing!

Now I should be able to draw it... ...!



It’s the power that everyone else got to experience long ago because they picked standard classes, you special little snowflake.

This is the Sword of Seals'...



[√] Silver hair
[√] Vacant expression
[√] Elf ears
[√] Heterochromia

Who was that? What is this feeling... It's very...



Yeah... I'm fine. So this is Hartmut's sword, the Sword of Seals... Am I allowed to use it...?

It has been said for centuries that the best swords choose their owners. The sword is in your hands now. You were chosen by it.

But it's only coincidence that I'm holding it...

What we may think of as being coincidental... Even that might be part of our fate.

...

Anyway, now that we have the Sword of Seals, all we need to do is head for the castle. We must hurry!

...Right! We have to defeat Zephiel!





Oh for fuck's sake, you didn't even get a new sprite. You really are the worst lord, Roy.

Well, he did... sorta. Yeah.

This is what happens when you don’t plan for the future kids. One day you trip over a class promotion item and you’re stuck looking like the same old dork forever because you didn’t pre-plan your wardrobe.



Given how far behind the main army any Roy undoubtedly is, this is a downright insulting set of promotion bonuses. His resistance moves up a notch from "fucking awful" to "terrible," he gets a generic set of +2's across the board, and the only big gain is the +2 Con. Also, if for some reason you haven't been using Roy, the game basically guarantees that you have Swords-S because it gives Roy 3 ranks in Swords upon promotion.

Oh, and there's three chapters left in the game. That really can't be emphasized enough. The average 20/1 Roy is 37.2/14.6/17.5/16.6/18.4/11.75/10.7. With three chapters left in the game.

Christ.

This is why we now have Bonus EXP. And sensibly timed plot promotions.

Next time: We finish our sweep of the continent. Zephiel awaits us in the Bern Keep!