Part 6: The Dungeon

Manster was under the rule of the Freege family, a house of nobles put in charge of Northern Thracia by the emperor of Granbell.



Seriously? They call it Conote in the English prologue, and on the map currently displayed.



Leaf had no idea of what he was about to witness...

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Oh hey look, a recruitable character.

Yes...



Don't you want to see the girls?
Girls? ...Mareeta and Nanna?
That's right. They are doing quite well. Don't worry, I haven't laid a finger on them.
...Are you really going to let me see them?
You have my word.
...All right. Please show me to them...
Of course, my lady. Hehehe...
......

Well, nothing sinister going on there, that's for sure.

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Sety!

Very well, then we shall meet again. Good luck!



Why do the things I love always leave me





Don't worry, Lara. Bryton and I will protect you. Let's go!

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(Player Phase)
(Enemy Phase)

Hoo boy. This is the first chapter in the game where Thracia 776 starts living up to it's reputation.



The double doors to the north are our main objective. On the other side of those doors is a room whose interior we can't see, as well as our end goal, two tiles from where we can escape. We win when Leaf escapes.

Things aren't so simple though. First, there are the 6 civilians seen here. We need to spring them from their cells, and then make sure they escape safely. (They escape from the east and west corridors).





We've also got our own prisoners. In the south-west we've got Leaf, as well as two new units we'll meet in due time. In the south-east we've got Lifis, as well as three allies bandits. The things is, our captors are competent and all our weapons have been confiscated. They've been distributed to the four groups of four treasure chests in each corner.



And now we've got the Magi group. They're the only characters we've got that have weapons, and so we need to use them to combat the guards and to break Leaf and Co. from prison. Once we've done that, we need to make our way through the chests, equipping our unarmed characters with pillaged weapons. Lastly, we break the civilians from jail. Let's start by taking a look at the magi group.



Bryton's stats are low, but he's still one of the better units we've got for now. 5 defense is actually good right here, 28hp lets him soak up some hits, and 11 build lets him use heavy weapons with no penalty. He's also got wrath, which greatly boosts his offensive capabilities. He's also an Axe Knight, which means he's taking stat penalties for being off his horse.



Makua is our first myrmidon. You can probably tell what myrmidons are good for from their stats. She's fast, but weak, and not too durable.



Lara does thief stuff.



Makua heads down to attack the southern guard. She can't kill him with her raw attacks, but she has a respectable PCC of 3, which should let her actually kill enemies.



Like so.



Lara picks the lock to the nearest treasure room, and Bryton moves to wrath some poor unsuspecting soldier on the enemy phase.

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That has to be most polite ruffian I've ever heard.

Hehe...looks like I'm pretty famous... Wait a minute...maybe I can use these guys...













Haha... Idiots are so easy to manipulate. Now I just have to wait for a chance...

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Bryton does that thing I said he would. Two other guards move towards our troops, one in the northern corridor, and one much closer in the southern corridor.

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Back to



...Who are you?
I'm Fergus, a traveling mercenary. Back in the city, I saw some soldiers harassing a girl, so I went in to stop them. And the next thing I know, I get thrown in here. Great, huh?



Yeah, and then they threw me in here as well because they thought I was with you. It's all your fault! What am I going to do now...
Come on, there's no point in crying over spilled milk. Yawn... I'm kinda tired, so I think I'll take a nap. Wake me up at dinnertime.

Fergus is a man who's got his priorities in order.



Oh, I'm from Silesia. I had just arrived in Manster...and then I end up here because of him.
Silesia... That's far up north, right? What did you come all the way here for.
Well, our prince suddenly left the country. The queen has already passed away, and the princess is still too young, so... We didn't know what to do, so we set out to look for the prince.
I heard that Silesia was destroyed by the Empire. The royal family is still safe?
Yes. The people opposing the Empire all moved to a city called Tovae in the far north, where they're defending the royal family. I'm going to become a full-fledged Pegasus Knight and help them out, too.
Wow... That means you can fly, right?
Well, I'm still not a knight yet, so flying is the best I can do. But my pegasus and I understand each other. His name is Hermes, and he's so cute and smart! He must be flying around here, looking for me.
So why did the prince leave the country?
He said he was going to go look for the king... But you see, the king's kinda weird. He left years ago, abandoning his country and family. Naturally, everyone's mad. So we need Prince Sety to return and take the throne. I was sent here to pick him up, but then because of this guy...

The king mentioned here is a fairly important character from 4. He doesn't play much of a role in 5 though. Sety was also a playable character from 4.

Because of who? You know, can't you keep it down? This is a prison. Some of us are trying to get some sleep.
You're the only one who can snore away in a place like this. You're so insensitive!



...Who's this guy?

Told you. Hahaha...
Erg...
......
...Something on your mind? You can talk to me about it. I might be able to help.
...Yes... Maybe you can help me.

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Makua weakens the closest soldier, while Lara pilfers an iron sword and Bryton does nothing of particular significance.



Makua finishes the job on the enemy phase. In the meantime, the northern guard keeps making his way towards us.

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Don't worry about me... I won't last much longer anyway. But... my grandchildren...
Don't push yourself, old lady. Here, you should lie down for a while.



But is the Magi group really strong enough to fight against them?
I'm sure it won't be easy, but we won't get anywhere unless we do something, right? We just have to believe in him...
The hero... Sety...
Before he came, the Magi group had been decimated.

They took out 1/10th of them?

But now, with Sety's help, they've become a force strong enough to be able to fight back against those bastards. As long as we trust Sety... we won't lose.

After that, Lara springs Lifis and his lackeys.





...Well, someone really did come... I guess talking through my hat sometimes does work...

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Don't worry, we're almost done with the



Bryton moves to kill the northern soldier with wrath.



He fails.



And then succeeds.



The brigands we freed are going to make their way towards to two armors. It's not worth coordinating with them, we'll just let them do their own thing.



On our phase, Lara busts Leaf and the gang out from jail.

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It could be anybody. For now, we have to run. The stairs to the north lead outside. I'll buy time for you, so you go first.

But what about you?
Probably we'll get captured again. But I don't mind as long as you're able to escape.
I can't do that! When I escape, so does everyone else!
Ha... All right, kid. I'll tag along with you for a while.



What, are you attracted to me now?
Huh? N-No, of course not!

Sure you're not . We've all played JRPGs before, we know how it works.

Just kidding. Well, what are you going to do? The leader of the Magi group is a guy named Sety. Isn't that the prince you're looking for?
Yes, most likely. But right now we need to help Lord Leaf. I can't forgive that Reidric person for taking girls as hostages. I'll help Lord Leaf escape, too.
You? Can you fight?
I'll do my best!
Well, well... Looks like I got a quite a handful now...

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Now that they're out of jail, let's examine our dynamic duo.



Fergus is the man. His stats are well-rounded, and good for his level (especially since he's taking penalties for being dismounted). He may be a little less durable than Bryton, but he makes up for it sheer offensive capabilities. You see, Fergus has a ridiculous PCC of 5. This works fantastic with his support bonus with Karin, to give him a base 85% critical chance on his second attack so long as he's near her. This is with a generic weapon and base stats. Fergus is the man.



Karin's not quite so good. She's our first Pegasus knight, a fan favorite class, and is exactly what you'd expect her to be. She's fast and lucky (which means she's got good avoid), but weak and frail. She can also fly, but not now. It's very much like Thracia 776 to give you 5 combat units for an indoor map and make 3 of them mounted units.



For comparison's sake, here's Leaf. You may have noticed he's not actually so bad (relatively speaking). This is more because of his high level, but it still makes for an interesting few chapters where Leaf is a capable front-liner.

Of course, none of our new characters actually have any weapons. We're going to have to fix that.



Felgus takes a short sword from Makua (short swords are slightly heavier and more accurate than iron swords, but are otherwise them same.) The brigands start attacking the armors.



Bryton waits in front of the armor on the left, while we start using Makua's chest keys to reclaim out weapons. Our first prize is a vulnerary. Without Safy, we're going to be needing those. Bryton then kills the armor with wrath, and the brigands kill the other armor, letting us head back to our pilfering. We get a Killer Edge, an Armorslayer, and the Hezul Scroll.

As I'm sure you've all been rereading the LP so far in anticipation of the new update, I'm sure you've realized that I, in fact, never even had these weapons in Leaf or Lifis' inventories. Truth is, I was lying horribly last update, and stacked our inventories in preparation for this turn of events.





Here's a more accurate portrayal of our inventories, although still not entirely accurate. Elfire stayed behind.



Time for next bunch of chests. We get a javelin, an iron sword, and the Baldo scroll. I also reconfigure our inventories, Fergus gets the Killer Edge, Karin an iron sword and the Hezul scroll, and Leaf the short sword.



Oh joy, reinforcements have started. The allied brigands are going to go attack them, we're going to let them hold off the reinforcements until they die. In the meantime, we'll keep getting our equipment back (on that note, we get another vulnerary from the 4th chest.)



Reinforcement from the south keep flooding the brigands, in more exciting news, a soldier shows up in the west.



Leaf weakens him, and Karin kills him. Leaf's stats turned out perfectly for this level, he can pretty much bring every enemy down to low single digits, letting Karin net some kills.



Fergus shows off why he's the man, when another soldier shows up in the west. The brigands and the southern soldiers continue their face-off.



Our forces have split into two groups, one to hold off the reinforcements from the west, and another to continue opening chests.





Both sides do their work admirably. Our rewards here were two vulneraries, on top of the lockpick seen here.



The brigands have almost all died (for some reason they insist on capturing the soldiers, which leads to them dying more than anything.)





The last chest in the quadrant gives a steel sword. I'm not exactly sure how these chests work, I know there are 16 of them this time, but 14 items is all Leaf and Lifis can carry, so I assume some items are fixed.





No stats! This proves to be a pattern.



Alright, the brigands are dead (or they ran away, because for some reason they can escape through the corridor while we can't), and so we're left with these two soldiers. Fergus is acting as bait for the nearest one here.







With that taken care of, we loot an iron sword and a vulnerary from the last grouping of chests.



One from the south, one from the west. So long as you take care of them quickly, the reinforcements are pretty much a steady, fairly risk free, source of EXP. I have to wonder what brilliant commander is behind the "sporadically send in one to two soldiers at a time from arbitrary corridors' strategy.





I feel like pointing out Karin can never actually kill an enemy by herself, Leaf is always weakening them first. Anyways, +1 HP, +1 Spd, +1 Lck, which is pretty much the least surprising Pegasus Knight level ever.



Finally, we get back Leaf's Light sword, which was in the very last chest plundered.



Bryton fails to kill the soldier, Karin weakens him on the player phase, letting Bryton finish him.



Now it's time for our second to last objective, saving the civilians. Formation is pretty important on this map, like in the picture shown, I try to keep a strong rearguard and vanguard to protect our weak units from surprise reinforcements.



Surprise Reinforcements.



And that's the first half of the first half of our objective done. Now we've got to protect them until they escape from the eastern corridor. (And presumably get caught again, considering they're heading to where the reinforcements are coming from. At least they make good decoys for our heroes.



We're pretty much safe like this, no matter which way the reinforcements come from the civies are safe. Fergus and Leaf are blocking off the east, and Bryton and Makua are going to take the soldiers coming from the south.







+1 Hp, +1 Skl, +1 Spd, +1 Lck. Pretty good, but strength is a must for Makua.



+1 Spd, +1 Def. Honestly, both those go a long way towards keeping Bryton alive, I'm satisfied.





Bryton takes Makua's weapon to weaken a soldier for Karin.



Anyways, the civilians escape without mishap (beyond their inevitable recapture), and we can start sending the rest on their way.



He gonna make his way towards us over the next couple of turns.



Same deal, but they leave through the west.



Our strategy is unchanged, our frontliners will block any potential reinforcements.





Lifis rescues one of the civilians, if by some chance an enemy with a javelin appeared to the west, it could have attacked them.



A slight dilemma appears here. We've only got three frontliners to block off the west and the south, with Leaf and Bryton busy in the north.





Our end formation looks a little like this. Not ideal, but Lara can take a hit if she needs to.



She ends not having to. Anyways Bryton does that.



Oh, right, forgot to give her weapon back. Whoops.





A surprisingly strong soldier comes out from nowhere.



Everyone is safe like this, although Makua still doesn't have a weapon.





All the civilians have escaped, we're almost home free.







Leaf heals up here.



One down. Leaf got lucky here and got continue.



One more takes his place, Leaf kills the guy he's attacking with a critical.



Two continues in one fight Damn, Leaf's on fire. (+1 Str, +1 Spd, +1 Def. At risk of being sued by every primetime sitcom ever, who are you and what have you done with Leaf?)



Hell yeah, nothing left but to open the double doors and escape.



Ugh, really?



Reinforcements are gonna come from the south for a while, each of them with a short lance and a vulnerary. I'll either be capturing them, or killing them with Karen.







Nothing but Speed. If I could choose one stat, I'd choose speed, so hurray?



+1 Hp, +1 Str, +1 Skl, +1 Spd, +1 Lck. That's everything a Pegasus Knight wants and much more.









+1 Hp, +1 Spd . That's a level alright.



+1 Hp, +1 Skl, +1 Spd, +1 Lck, +1 Def Makua's doing alright for herself.



Alright, finally, let's do this.



Oh goddammit.





Take two. Everyone heals up, and Leaf takes the armorslayer. He got a weapon rank earlier, so he's actually the only one who can use it. Go time.



Oh, fu...



OH GOD, we're going to die, form up, form up!





This armor here has a battle axe, which can do a whopping twelve damage per attack to our beefiest character.

Alright, if we want to survive, we're going to need a tank. And the enemy was kind enough to provide one for us.

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Let's take a look.



Exactly what we need right now, he's got a lot of defense and respectable offense.



Damn it, he's still alive. We want him dead, or we'll have to deal with him on the enemy phase. That would be bad, because not only would he do heavy damage to the weakest link in our vanguard, but he'd proceed to be killed, letting other enemies attack an already weakened character.



That thing I hoped wouldn't happen happens. Bryton retreats to the back to heal, and Fergus is the only character who I trust to hold the gap. He was already carrying Lifis though, and so he's forced to drop him over attacking the armor.





No stats.



Lifis potentially saves us, as he baits an armor to occupy the space in front of Fergus.



Fergus gets attacked by a bow armor. If the armor with the javelin had attacked Fergus, I probably would have lost here. Hurray for exploitable AI.



Dalshin being an awesome tank.







Leaf weakens the Lance Armor with his Light Sword, and Bryton takes Fergus's place, which Fergus heads to the back to heal. Karen takes Lifis's place as a lure for an enemy.

On the enemy phase, a Bow Armor takes the bait, and attacks Karen. A different Bow Armor attacks Byrton, bringing him down to 22hp, and an Axe Armor misses Dashin.





Leaf takes down a Lance Armor and a mage with his Light Sword.

Back to the player phase.





I... I think we're going to make it. Makua takes Karin's place as ranged bait.

Enemy time.



An arrow gives Bryton +1 Hp, +1 Bld



Leaf and a mage trade blows, and Leaf gets +1 Hp, +1 Str, +1 Lck, +1 Def



We're still okay, we can do this.







Dashin takes some trivial hits from the Axe Armors, and Makua takes some damage in her role as bait. The mage does some real damage to Dashin. He levels up, and gets... nothing. Third time this chapter.



A gamble, but it pays off.



With only three armors left, Leaf's bringing out the big guns. The armorslayer is effective against armors, and so has triple it's normal Mt against armored units. It's a one hit kill here. Of course, Leaf misses. I didn't use it earlier because I didn't want Leaf to kill every armor who attacked him, while they gradually whittled him down and killed him.



On the enemy phase, all three miss.



God damn Leaf, seriously?





On the enemy phase, Leaf is hit once, but dodges twice.





Leaf finally connects with the armorslayer.



Fergus and Dashin take out the second last armor.



The last armor is surrounded, and Lifis starts looting heal staffs.





And we've done it!

All that's left are two enemy healers, but since we've looted them, we're just going to let them go right?



Experience for the Rng god!



+1 Hp, +1 Str, +1 Mag . The Rng god was not pleased with our offerings.



+1 Skl, +1 Spd, +1 Lck, +1 Def. The rng god has deigned to give us defense. Praise him.



Alright, now listen closely. This is important. Make sure your characters escape. All of them. Do not let Leaf escape first. Any characters left behind when Leaf escapes are gone. I had to reset the game the first time I played, because I literally had no characters but Leaf for the next chapter. Anyways, I do that, and beat the map.



It shall set an example for the other cities. Have no mercy.
Of course. However, the Freege generals seem to be hesitant. They have surrounded the city, but they seem reluctant to step in.



My brother is also strongly against this act. Bishop Manfroy, please stop the child hunting. It is unbearable to separate young children from their parents. And sacrificing them to Lopto is not something that a humane person would do!



Ishtar, I think there's a misunderstanding. I am not telling them to kill the children. I just want to educate them to be fitting citizens for my empire. Those who withstand the training will earn high posts and rule over the other inferior citizens. In other words, they will become new nobles, Ishtar. I'm giving them a chance to grasp their happiness.

Oh, well that's okay then.

They only become nobles after surviving through harsh hatred between each other... That is not happiness.
...You'll understand soon enough. Oh, Ishtar, did you know there was a beautiful flower garden in the yard? Let's go take a look.
...Yurius...

Ishtar is an odd character, she's portrayed somewhat sympathetically, but she's literally dating Satan (or at least FE world Satan)

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New Recruits

Bryton:



Hp: 70% Spd: 30%
Str: 35% Lck: 15%
Mag: 5% Def: 35%
Skl: 25% Bld: 20%
Mov: 1%

Class: Axe Knight Weapon Ranks: C (Axes), D (Swords) Movement stars: 0 Skills: Wrath PCC: 1

Bryton is at his best during the small segment of the game we're in now. He's fairly durable, and he's got wrath to boost his offense. We're going to be relying on him fairly heavily for the next little while. He can start lagging behind though, due to low growths, bases and PCC, and I've never had much luck with him in the long-term.

Makua



Hp: 60% Spd: 60%
Str: 30% Lck: 35%
Mag: 10% Def: 25%
Skl: 55% Bld: 10%
Mov: 1%

Class: Myrmidon Weapon Ranks: Swords (D) Movement stars: 0 Skills: Ambush PCC: 3

Makua's biggest problem is that she's one of four myrmidons, and two of them are better. Better growths, better skills, better PCCs, the works. In a vacuum, she's a great unit (although her strength growth is a hindrance), but I've never had much of a reason to use her beyond a certain point.

Fergus:



Hp: 65% Spd: 35%
Str: 35% Lck: 40%
Mag: 10% Def: 25%
Skl: 45% Bld: 20%
Mov: 1%

Class: Free Knight Weapon Ranks: C (Swords) Movement stars: 1 Skills: None PCC: 5

I've said it before, but Fergus is the man. You want him to kill someone, he does, and probably doesn't die in the process. His PCC of 5 has always made him a critical part of my team, and his support bonus with Karin works wonders in conjuction with it. Being a free Knight is also a feather in his cap; Free knights being Knights with swords as their main weapon. This means he can doesn't have to split weapon ranks, and can always use his main weapon, even dismounted.

Karin:



Hp: 55% Spd: 70%
Str: 30% Lck: 70%
Mag: 15% Def: 15%
Skl: 35% Bld: 2%
Mov: 2%

Class: Pegasus Knight Weapon Ranks: D (Swords), E (Lances) Movement stars: 0 Skills: None PCC: 1

Karin is our first Pegasus Knight, and fits the role perfectly. I've always had a fondness for Karin beyond what she probably deserves, on my last playthrough she capped nearly eveything and was incredibly powerful. That said, even without luck, she's a good unit. She's our only flier for a while, which is an invaluable role, and even when other fliers join she's still easily the 2nd best flier. Her Magic is also pretty good, making her a great candidate for magic swords. (although she can only use them dismounted.)

Lara:



Hp: 45% Spd: 70%
Str: 10% Lck: 60%
Mag: 10% Def: 20%
Skl: 50% Bld: 5%
Mov: 3%

Class: Thief Weapon Ranks: E (Swords) Movement stars: 0 Skills: Steal PCC: 1

Lara's kind of special, but for the time being she's just another thief, and not that noteworthy as far as thiefs go. Her speed is high, but her build is low, and her combat stats are terrible.

Dashin



Hp: 60% Spd: 25%
Str: 50% Lck: 25%
Mag: 5% Def: 20%
Skl: 40% Bld: 25%
Mov: 2%

Class: Axe Armor Weapon Ranks: B (axes) Movement stars: 0 Skills: Nothing PCC: 1

Dashin is an Axe Armor. He's slow, strong, and can take plenty of hits. His defence growth is surpisingly low (although it starts high enough it doesn't matter much), and he doesn't have that much going on in terms of offense beyond a high strength growth. He's a good unit, and very useful for the segment of the game we're in, but won't be too great later in the game. He'll need scrolls to overcome his low speed, and those scrolls could go to make an great character amazing, rather than a decent character good. (Honestly, I've never used him beyond a certain point, so a lot of what I'm saying are inferences based on his stats and growths. It's a playstyle thing really, I'm not a huge fan of armors, even when they're good units.)

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Current Resets: 0

Next time on Thracia 776: Sety-sama!