Part 22: Chapter 18A: Two Faces of Evil
Chapter 18A: Two Faces of Evil
Innes has ordered Frelian troops to aid in the hunt. The troops return with news that Lyon has moved north.
The group’s search for Lyon leads them to Mt. Neleras, in the heart of Darkling Woods.
The scorching heat and sulphur stench render the area unfit for human habitation...
Endless numbers of gorgon eggs stud the forbidding landscape.
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"Why aren't we catching fire right now?"
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Keep this statement in mind, because Eirika sure won't.
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That's a slight hint about this chapter's gimmick, but first:
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Promotions!
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Tana's now the queen of the skies.
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And Kyle is...well, still Kyle.
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So hypothetically speaking, our goal is to progress through this area, smashing eggs as we go to prevent them from turning into Gorgons.
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Not a bad idea, given what we're up against. Gorgons are sturdy enough to take a hit to the face and powerful enough to make you wish you'd killed them on the first shot. They've also got their own unique long-range spell, shown here, and a unique status effect, which we'll see in a minute.
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By thread request, this chapter is going to be...different. You'll see what I mean.
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L'Arachel's powerful enough to use the Warp staff now. In lieu of having a dancer, it's essential to my plans.
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What I want to do is drop Eirika right there. Why there? You'll see.
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Egg hatching seems to be an event that occurs at a certain turn, rather than anything having to do with proximity. How it works is every egg has a certain amount of health, and once activated, will gain 5 health a turn. Once it reaches full health...
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A battle-ready Gorgon comes out and gets to fight immediately. Not a pleasant surprise if you're playing normally, but here...
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Yeah, this is a nasty-looking power with nasty damage. But once the Gorgon's turn is over...
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I reset. You see, the Fire Emblem series has a sort of autosave that it does in the middle of battles so that you can quit and resume where you left off. If you do this right after an enemy attacks, however...
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It's still the enemy's turn, but the game gives you control of them. This is called the Mine Glitch 2.0, after a similar glitch that could be exploited in FE7 when enemies would walk over mines.
So what can you do with control of enemy units? Well, for starters...
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You can have them trade with one another. Don't mind the weirdness there. The game doesn't have data for monster portraits, so it's just showing junk.
Still, playing around with monster inventories seems like an intriguing novelty, but it's not that interesting.
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What's more interesting is that you can still access the convoy during the enemy phase, giving and taking what you need. The Stone ability, in particular, is essential for phase two of this glitch.
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Oh, and monster weapons? Usable by anyone. The game doesn't put restrictions on who can use them, because I suspect they never thought that someone would be able to do something like this.
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There's even a way to involve the eggs in this little glitch. First, you'll need to pull three items from the convoy that you really need to have repaired, plus one junk item that you're okay with losing.
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You'll notice that eggs have an empty slot above the weapon they'll actually spawn with. Put the junk item there, and everything else below. And when the egg hatches...
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Boom! Three items, fully repaired. You can even do that with the Dragonstone, if you're okay with the hatched Gorgon potentially throwing that right back at you. Sadly, the game just defaults it to the map animation, so there's no weird glitching with dragon heads.
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Another sort of fun you can also have with this glitch is leading enemies onto these brightly-colored tiles here. Anybody standing on these panels at the end of the enemy phase has a random chance of being hit for 10 health. Near as I could tell, the game would always just choose two people at random, but it seems to vary.
Also, if we'd brought a thief, he could have rendered these things harmless...somehow. Thieves are crafty people.
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Let's talk about Stone for a bit. Stone immobilizes characters like Sleep does, but also gives a 100% hit chance and what appears to be a 30% crit chance to anyone who attacks a petrified enemy. Nasty if used against the party, hilarious if used against them.
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Oh, and for whatever reason, the folks at IntSys made Stone give weapon experience in dark magic, so now Moulder is officially a Dark Bishop. He'll need to use Stone a bit more if he wants to use anything else, since the easiest dark magic tome starts at D Rank, but it's a start.
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Enough fooling around with glitches. Let's get back to fighting.
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Outstanding.
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Ewan and Knoll are kind of a load on this map, since Gorgons have a sizeable amount of resistance, but they manage.
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I'd be happier about this if he'd actually get some magic.
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Smashing eggs before they hatch gives a flat 50 experience without any modifications. That's pretty handy for people at higher levels.
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Demon Surge is very pretty to watch.
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Technically, these enemies shouldn't be charging us like that, but I'd rather not trudge across lava panels.
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Oh yes, since Stone is considered a weapon and not a status staff, you can target eggs with it too, and you can even hit the same enemy with it multiple times. Good stuff.
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Maybe I should have been training L'Arachel in dark magic. Oh well, hindsight and all that.
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Amelia doesn't care about magic.
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Nor does she care about traditional knight roles.
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Neimi is pretty handy on this map, since the Longbow can shoot eggs that are just out of reach.
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Like I said, very pretty.
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More stone for your new master.
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Tana's taking a trip north.
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Promoted characters have to get their levels somehow.
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Here we see the cool aspect of the Sacred Twin weapons. Against monsters, their power is doubled.
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One not-so-cool aspect of them is that every time you use them, the game flashes a bright light in your face. And unlike the legendary weapons of FE7, you don't get any special animations with them.
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Eirika has her own flourishes though.
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More strength? How very unlike her.
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Yeah, Knoll...he's wearing the Hoplon Guard, otherwise these things, even these things, would have a crit chance on him. Kind of sad, really.
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Good thing Marisa's here to pick up the slack.
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More eggs hatching. Good.
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In order to help Knoll out a bit, Moulder gives him some easy targets.
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Ewan also reaps the spoils. Still no magic, though.
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Meanwhile, Tana's having to share her egg bounty up north with Marisa. This map is kind of sparse when it comes to enemies really. There were supposed to be spiders, for instance, lots of spiders, but I guess that's only in hard mode. How disappointing.
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Given the previous level, this is acceptable.
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In retrospect, this one should have gone to Knoll. Oh well, Neimi's gotta be ready for promotion too.
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Whoever it was that suggested that Marisa should become an assassin might have a point.
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Feeling left out, Gerik snaps up a kill.
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Way to go, Gerik.
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Queen of the skies, indeed.
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And now Moulder can start slinging around dark spells too if he wants. I've been neglecting his light magic studies, so I'll have to focus on that first, but this gives us something to think about.
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He might have some competition at the rate that L'Arachel's going.
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One last Gorgon, and Knoll finally gets to gain a level. Here we go, son. Impress me.
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...He didn't even get a critical hit on the thing.
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Pumping up L'Arachel's ridiculous luck some more, and we end.
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Hi, Lyon!
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Bye, Lyon!
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This won't end well.
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You're not really going to...
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Yup, she is.
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There comes a point when trusting in the power of friendship just becomes moronic naivety. And the worst part is that Eirika doesn't really learn anything from this, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
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All I ask when you do is that you leave the stone of Rausten with Seth.
Next Time: We have to keep a bunch of cannon fodder alive in Chapter 19: Last Hope