Part 11: Purple Dragon Mountain

We've been reunited with our old gang, which serves as a natural transition to deployment based maps. From now on, we get treated to this little menu at the start of every chapter. Map lets us see the map, Item lets us exchange items between characters, Pick lets us pick who we want to bring, Unit lets us look at a master list of our characters, and the rest is self explanatory. I'd like to point out there's no reposition option, like there is in pretty much every other Fire Emblem. Unit position is determined based on how many characters you bring, and is nearly impossible to manipulate. This sure gets fun when your forces are split into multiple groups. (Who occasionally all need a thief/door key.)

Alright, let's choose our characters.



Umm... why can't I choose you Fergus?



I can't choose Karin either? And say, what's that kanji up near your name?

No, my game isn't glitched, we're just being introduced to the myriad joys of Thracia 776's fatigue system. You see, every time you take take an action, a character's fatigue slightly increases. When a character's fatigue surpasses their Max Hp, they can longer be deployed. A character's fatigue is reset to 0 if they sit out on a battle. In a sane game, they would introduce fatigue now, and everyone would start at 0. In Thracia 776, its been accumulating non-stop, and so the majority of our roster can't be deployed. (This is why I didn't have a vote after last update).



Here's our team for today's mission: Leaf, Fin, Othin, Havan, Lifis, Lara, and Hicks (and Carion, although he technically hasn't joined yet.) Both our healers are fatigued, if I wanted to bring Safy I should have used Nanna to heal Shiva in the arena. Before the battle starts, I distribute our inventory around. Nothing major, just making sure all the scroll are in play and everyone has some high durability iron weapons. We can also buy some basic iron weapons, and access the supply from the item menu.

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Thank you, we can handle the rest. You can return to General Hannibal now.
No, I'm not returning to Thracia. I've already informed General Hannibal.
What?
General Hannibal knows everything, Lord Leaf. No, it's not just the general... Rumors about your survival have spread out all over the peninsula. People are counting on you to stand up and unite those fighting against the Empire. And of course, I also feel proud that I can participate in the battle to liberate my country.
Your country? You're not from Thracia?
No, I was born into a Lenster knight's family. My father died in battle, but my mother and I were rescued by General Hannibal. Please, Lord Leaf, allow me into your service. I want to be part of the battle retake Lenster!
...I don't have such strength. I don't know whether I'm really capable of recapturing Lenster...
There's no need to worry about that. Let us head for General Hannibal's mansion.
He has a mansion?
No, famed military generals are famed for their poverty. Yes, it's located on the mountain. There are many people like me staying there. Count Dorias has been training young knights under the protection of General Hannibal.
What!? Dorias... Did you say Count Dorias!?



Will you come?
Of course! Being able to see Count Dorias again is like a dream come true!
Lord Leaf, forgive my interruption, but bandits have appeared. They seem to attacking a nearby village. What do you want to do?
Help them, of course. You'll fight with us, right Carrion?
Of course, Lord Leaf. It's strange, though... A bandit named Dagda is in charge of this area. His village is being attacked...?

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This map is pretty easy. There's not much going on beyond a mild scattering of fairly weak brigands. It's a huge breather after maps like Chapter 7.



Here's our meager force.



This is literally the enemies main force. You can probably see where I get off calling the map easy. That said, there is an annoying gimmick to this map, that being all the enemies here are equipped with poison weapons. Poison weapons are iron weapons that poison any enemies they hit. As status effects never wear off by time, you'll be spending a lot of the map gradually being chipped down by poison. I prefer not to use antidotes here, it's not hard to stay alive despite the poison, and it's so common even if you heal it you'll just be poisoned again quickly. I just tough it out. This does add a small element of difficulty to the map, as poison can kill you, and so you can't drop below 3hp. (Poison does inconsistent damage, but it always seems to be between 1 and 3.)



Here we can see the boss and a warrior. Neither is much of a threat, however, there's another annoying gimmick going on.



The boss is a dismounted dragon knight, and on turn 16 he'll get back on his mount. Once he does that, he gets to use some powerful weapons (guess what his horseslayer does) and gets decent stat bonuses (off all the mounted classes, dragon knights suffer the most from dismounting.) Now, it would be easy enough to just kill him before then, but we can't do that. We unlock a sidequest for capturing him, which becomes impossible if he mounts. So, we have 16 turns to capture him. He's also on a fuck you tile, so he's got 10 defense and 30 avoid, which makes capturing him the opposite of easy. We'll cross that obstacle when we come to it.



First turn, we move up. Carion's holding every scroll, as well as an iron sword (he can't use the Steel Lance without some hefty AS penalties.)

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Sorry, but can you help us out just a bit more? Looks like some more enemies showed up, so I need someone to guard this mansion. I still got some more work to do.
Damn, this is more than I bargained for. All right then, let's get this over with...

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Misses twice with a 91! Off to a great start.



Gets a critical! Actually off to a great start. An archer misses Carion. Looking around amongst the enemies, something seems off.



Oh hey Marty. What's going on. I totally had noticed you were gone. And cared.





Carion finishes off one of the bandits and presses forward.



Capturing doesn't always have to used to capture, sometimes it's just useful to whittle someone down.



I mean, this time it was just so someone else could capture him, but that's not always the case.



Havan kills the third brigand.



Carion trades blows with the one brigand, and dodges another.





Leaf weakens one brigand...



And Carion takes a swing at him. [Lv. 2, Hp:25, Str: 6, Mgc:2, Skl: 6, Spd: 9, Luk: 6, Def: 5, Bld: 6.] Not bad Carion, not bad at all.



He keeps on trucking.





Havan and Fin are merciful, and capture the two brigands.





Next turn Carion moves in front of one of the houses and heals. (For the record, none of the brigands guarding the building will move.) Hey, we have some prisoners, let's get us some poison weapons. How about we poison some bosses and watch them die, 'cause status effects don't wear off



Oh fuck you game. Why do you hate my dreams? _{you're just like my ex}



The rest of my army moves forward. Fin equips a javelin and waits on the outskirts of the warrior's range. Meanwhile, Carion gets attacked again.





Fin javelins the warrior for 5 damage.



Then on the player phase, he deals 6 with his iron lance.



Next up is Othin, who deals seven.



Havan and Carion both miss the warrior, surrounding him, while everyone else moves west.



However shall we manage.







And the warrior is done for! [Lv. 3, Hp: 26, Str: 7, Mgc: 2, Skl: 7, Spd: 10, Luk: 7, Def: 6, Bld: 6] Not bad, not bad at all. I think you'll fit in just fine here Carion.



Time to recruit Marty.

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Ulp... N-No, you got the wrong guy...
...Turning your back isn't enough to hide yourself, you know... Anyway, what's the meaning of this?
Um...well...Gomes, he...
What do you mean, 'Um, well'! Marty...
I-I had no choice...
...Let's get this straight. Are you going to betray Dagda and Lady Eyvel and turn to the other side?
A-All right... You don't have to get so angry...
So that means you're on our side, right?
......
Marty!
O-Of course! Yeah...

Alternatively, Othin can recruit him:

......
Hm? Hey, it's Marty!
Ulp... N-No, you got the wrong guy...
Turning your back isn't gonna hide you, you know. What are you doing out here?
Um...well... Gomes, he...
That's not what I'm asking! If you're going against Dagda and Lady Eyvel, then you're going against me, too! Prepare to die!
W-Wait! ...Sorry. I was wrong...
...So you'll join our side?
...Well, but Gomes...
Argh! Make up your mind! Are you with us? Or against us!?
O-Okay, okay! I'm on your side! You don't have to shout...

C'mon Marty, he was just axing you a question. (God I hate Marty. Othin's pretty cool though.)

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Almost at the boss.





Now it's our turn.





Now, remember how the boss has a vulnerary? That'd probably make capturing him kind of a hassle.



Yoink!



Fin captures Lifis and Hicks swaps and drops him.



Oh no.



Our turn.



Carion criticals him to death. [Lv. 4, Hp: 27, Str: 8, Mgc: 2, Skl: 8, Spd: 10 Luk: 8, Def: 6, Bld: 7. Carry on Carion.





We're going to use the Light Sword to whittle Rumay down.



Then Fin's going to try and capture him. Best case scenario, he crits twice and captures him, worse case, we're no worse off than we were.



I can deal with that.



Carion's at 19hp, the brigand 15hp.





Success. We're pretty much home free now. And to the victors go the spoils, in this case the spoils being a Knights Proof, an iron sword, a horseslayer, and a steel lance. (And an empty level! Way to steal all the luck Carion )





Carion attacks another brigand and bails.



Othin takes his place.





Feel his wrath. _{Does that even count as pun? I mean, I'm pretty sure it's what they were going for.}



The archer and brigand combo (remember them?), finally reach us. Havan holds them off on the bridge. The archer misses.



On our turn, Havan captures the brigand.

[Lv. 10, Hp: 32, Str: 9, Mgc: 1, Skl: 8, Spd: 10, Luk: 3 Def: 7, Bld: 14.] Man, I wasn't kidding when I said Carion's stealing all the luck.



Carion creates a bottleneck against the archer, and then heals.



Stuff happens, that ends with the archer being dead.

Now that the archer is dead, the only enemies left are the stationary brigands guarding the two houses, the armory and the shop.





[Lv. 5, Hp: 28, Str: 8, Mgc: 2, Skl: 9, Spd: 11, Luk: 9, Def: 6, Bld:8. The build especially is nice, the more build he has the faster he can wield heavy weapons without penalty.



[Lv.6, Hp: 29, Str: 8, Mgc: 2, Skl: 10, Spd: 12, Luk: 9, Def: 7, Bld: 8] Nothing wrong with some more defense.



Alright, the villages are clear, let's get some prizes.

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Wait, you guys are going to get rid of Gomes for us? Thanks!

Uh... we are?

We didn't put our sweat into building this village just so Gomes could mess it up. Here, take this medal as a token of our gratitude.

Another knight's proof, no complaints here.



The merchant said it would bring me good luck... but all I'm getting is bad luck! Damn, I was conned...

And a luck ring. I guess you could say today's our lucky day.

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We also visit the armory and the shop.



I buy a hammer. Not for any particular reason, I just think it might be useful somewhere down the line, especially because Othin has 16 build, which means he can nearly use it without penalty. (Hammers deal effective damage to armors.)



From here I get a couple vulnerarys and a bunch of door keys.



And we're done.

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Hmph, that's none of your business. Why don't you hurry up and kill me off?
No, I have no such intention. I'll release you if you just answer one question.
Release...? Never! I'll be staining my name as a Dragon Knight if I take pity from an enemy!
But you have a wife and children, right? If you die, they will suffer without income. That's really all right with you?

Sympathetic filler bosses? In my Fire Emblem? It's more likely likely than you think.

......
You have your issues as well. I won't dig into your personal information, nor will I pursue you after this.
...What is it...that you want to know?
I want to know where the owner of this mansion, Dagda, and his daughter Tanya have gone.
...... They're inside. Gomes is in there as well. ...He's out to kill them.

Okay, I take it back. Nobody who uses that many ellipses deserves any sympathy.

All right, thanks. August, release this man, dragon and all.
...Yes...
...I'm sorry.

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Current Resets: 6

Next time on Thracia 776: Better hope you gave Dadga a good weapon.

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Viewer participation time!

With the advent of deployment based maps, I can finally put who comes along with us up too a vote. Next chapter is indoors, with fog of war.

We have 5 vacant spots, and we need to bring a powerhouse, a healer, and a thief. Asvel, Fergus, Shiva and Othin are considered powerhouses.

Then, we need 2 other characters. Choose two from our roster: Fin, Othin, Havan, Lifis, Lara, Hicks, Safy, Fergus, Karin, Dashin, Asvel, Bryton, Makua, Nanna, and Shiva. (Some of these characters fall into the three categories above. That's fine, we can easily bring two or even three powerhouses, although you obviously can't vote for a character twice.

Let me talk for a bit about our roster though. As you may have noticed, Carion isn't an option. We need him next chapter, and he'll get fatigued if he participates. I'm always looking ahead to things like that, so make sure you read the roster before you vote, and don't cast away any votes. Obviously, fatigued characters are out of the roster. Furthermore, Thracia 776 is a hard game, and there isn't as much leeway to level large amount of characters, as it lacks PoR's bonus exp and low difficulty, as well as 7's easily abused arena. So, the roster will be constantly updating, and will not include every character. As voting goes on, unused characters will fall from the roster. As such, keep in mind your voting has consequences reaching slightly further than just the one map. For the time being, I'm letting everyone but Ronan and Marty to be allowed in. I've revamped the second post into a character guide, check it out if you want to see how our units stack up against each other.

Musings: It's an indoor map, so keep the fact that our units will dismount in mind. Fergus suffers the least from dismounting, so when it comes to indoor maps, he can easily be treated as an ordinary foot soldier. (He only loses 1str and two defense for dismounting, and gets to stick to his main weapon type.)

I'm going to tentatively say voting will be open for 24 hours.

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This update is brought to you in memory of god Carion, who was lost to a recording/save error. Over the course of 6 levels, he got 6 hp, 6 str, 1 mgc, 6 skl, 6 spd, 5 luk, 4 defense, 1 build, and 1 move. Although current Carion's doing pretty good, he will be missed.