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.





: What is it, Eirika? There’s no need to be so formal.

"Why aren't we catching fire right now?"

: It’s about Lyon...My brother was right. Lyon’s been possessed by the Demon King. He...He’s no longer the Lyon I once knew. But I can’t help feeling...there must be some way to bring him back.

: ...

: Please help me, L’Arachel. I want to save him. Rausten is the spiritual heart of Magvel. They keep the ancient lore. You’re their princess. You must know something about the demons of legend. Is there anything that can save Lyon?

: I’m so sorry, Eirika. To the best of my knowledge, there is no way to aid him.

: That can’t be! There must be something! Any clue, no matter how slight...

: Our oldest legends tell us just this...



: Rausten’s founder, Saint Latona the sure-hearted, shattered his fetters. If one possesses a strength of will beyond that of normal men...Only then can one throw off the shackles of the Demon King. But you saw it yourself, Eirika, with your own two eyes. Your friend Lyon’s body has already been claimed by the Demon King. Once it’s gone that far, there’s nothing that can be done.

: When the Demon King takes over someone, he devours his spirit, his very soul. Even if his hold on Lyon’s body could be released, that body would have no soul. There is no power in Rausten, not even the Sacred Stone, that can perform so great a miracle as to restore a shattered soul.

Keep this statement in mind, because Eirika sure won't.

: But...Lyon...

: Eirika...I understand how you feel, but the prince is gone. The Lyon you knew no longer exists. It’s more important now that you care for yourself. If we pursue the Demon King, we’re likely to suffer for it. I want you to return to Rausten Palace and rest yourself.

: Thank you, L’Arachel. However, I must stay with the company. I have to believe there’s something I can do to help him. Lyon was always so kind. He wanted nothing more than to help people. It’s too terrible to picture him imprisoned by the Demon King. Imprisoned with no hope of salvation.



: Brother. Do you smell something?

: Smell?

: Yes. An unpleasant odor, like sulphur. It’s emanating from this valley.



: Are those... eggs?

: Gorgon eggs... There are so many...

: Brother! The eggs! They’ve started to hatch!

: No... He’s led us into a trap! Watch out! Everyone, steer clear of those eggs!

That's a slight hint about this chapter's gimmick, but first:



Promotions!



Tana's now the queen of the skies.



And Kyle is...well, still Kyle.



So hypothetically speaking, our goal is to progress through this area, smashing eggs as we go to prevent them from turning into Gorgons.



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.



By thread request, this chapter is going to be...different. You'll see what I mean.



L'Arachel's powerful enough to use the Warp staff now. In lieu of having a dancer, it's essential to my plans.



What I want to do is drop Eirika right there. Why there? You'll see.



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...



A battle-ready Gorgon comes out and gets to fight immediately. Not a pleasant surprise if you're playing normally, but here...





Yeah, this is a nasty-looking power with nasty damage. But once the Gorgon's turn is over...



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...



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...



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.



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.



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.



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.



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...



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.



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.



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.



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.



Enough fooling around with glitches. Let's get back to fighting.



Outstanding.



Ewan and Knoll are kind of a load on this map, since Gorgons have a sizeable amount of resistance, but they manage.



I'd be happier about this if he'd actually get some magic.



Smashing eggs before they hatch gives a flat 50 experience without any modifications. That's pretty handy for people at higher levels.



Demon Surge is very pretty to watch.



Technically, these enemies shouldn't be charging us like that, but I'd rather not trudge across lava panels.



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.



Maybe I should have been training L'Arachel in dark magic. Oh well, hindsight and all that.



Amelia doesn't care about magic.



Nor does she care about traditional knight roles.



Neimi is pretty handy on this map, since the Longbow can shoot eggs that are just out of reach.



Like I said, very pretty.



More stone for your new master.



Tana's taking a trip north.



Promoted characters have to get their levels somehow.



Here we see the cool aspect of the Sacred Twin weapons. Against monsters, their power is doubled.



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.



Eirika has her own flourishes though.



More strength? How very unlike her.



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.



Good thing Marisa's here to pick up the slack.



More eggs hatching. Good.



In order to help Knoll out a bit, Moulder gives him some easy targets.





Ewan also reaps the spoils. Still no magic, though.



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.



Given the previous level, this is acceptable.





In retrospect, this one should have gone to Knoll. Oh well, Neimi's gotta be ready for promotion too.



Whoever it was that suggested that Marisa should become an assassin might have a point.



Feeling left out, Gerik snaps up a kill.



Way to go, Gerik.



Queen of the skies, indeed.



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.



He might have some competition at the rate that L'Arachel's going.



One last Gorgon, and Knoll finally gets to gain a level. Here we go, son. Impress me.



...He didn't even get a critical hit on the thing.



Pumping up L'Arachel's ridiculous luck some more, and we end.



Hi, Lyon!

: ...



Bye, Lyon!

: Wait!

: Hold, Eirika! Don't go anywhere alone!

: Lyon's back there! I won't abandon him!



This won't end well.



: Ei...Eirika...

: Lyon? Where are you?

: I'm...here.



: Lyon... Hold on. I'll save you!



: The Demon King has devoured my soul... I'm mad...and I'm going... to die...

: Lyon... What should I do? How can I help you? Tell me! I'll do anything, but you have to tell me!

: ...The Sacred Stone... Give me...the stone...

: What?

: My body...is being ravaged by the Demon King. If it continues unchecked, nothing can save me. But if I had the power of a Sacred Stone... I could save...my soul...

: Lyon...

: Please...Eirika... I don't want to die yet... I want to live...with you... If I had the Sacred Stone... I could...heal myself... Please...

: Could the Sacred Stone really do that? Could it heal you?

: Yes... Please...Eirika...

You're not really going to...

: I...trust you, Lyon. I have a stone right here.

Yup, she is.



: Ha ha...Heh heh heh...An abominable Sacred Stone...Here in my grasp.

: What? Lyon? No... You're--

: Ha ha...heh heh heh. How disappointing for you. This body is mine now. Nothing remains of your dear boy's soul.

: You only pretended to be Lyon... You deceived me. Return him! Return Lyon now!

: I'm afraid there's no hope of that. You see, I've devoured him. Bite by bite, slowly. How I savored it. Nothing remains but this suit of flesh I wear. There is nothing to heal. Not even the power of a Sacred Stone can craft something from nothing. He cannot be saved.

: That...can't...

: Ha ha... Bwah ha ha ha! I love how humans look when they're drowning in despair. Now is the time to be done with this stone.



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.



: Oh...caught up, have you? Hmm, I've changed my mind. I'll leave the girl alive. Take her. There are memories of you in this flesh I wear. And I hunger to see your face bear more suffering and pain.





: Brother... Lyon? Lyon's...

: Eirika... I know. Don't speak.

: I...I... Lyon is... He's really...

: Let's go back. L’Arachel will be worried, Eirika... You can weep now. As much as you need. Weep for me, as well.



: I see no way we can pursue him now...

: So he got away, is that it?

: There's no cause to be discouraged. Beyond these mountains lie the heart of Darkling Woods. Before we enter, we must head north to Rausten. After all, we still need the Sacred Stone of Rausten. As long as even one stone remains, all hope is not lost. Come on. We cannot give in to despair when victory draws so near!

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