Part 15: Lacryma Episode 5 Chapter 3 - Protector of the law pt.3

Lacryma Episode 5 Chapter 3 pt.3


I don't know why I keep posting these, because all the missions so far have occured in Kainas. Atleast in Lacryma's story.


We are to fight off thieves attacking the Kainas shrine and... Wait. This sounds oddly familiar.


Hmm, I feel something off about this mission. We appearently don't have to murder everyone.


This looks very familiar. Okey, they totally reused the map from Toxa's campaign when he had to defend the Shinon shrine.
Surprisingly low effort. Anyways, we're facing off against Raguruzet and Karis. Let's check out our surroundings.


Right in front of us we have this group of phantoms to contend with. Without Troy, we are gonna have a tough time, dealing with these without summoning our own phantoms.
I mean, we could but it would leave us in terrible shape after wards.


Just on top of these are 3 more Morderes.


And below the central group, we have another 3 Morderes, barried by a river.


Right behind the central group, we have Raguruzet and Karis themselves, guarded by another 4 Beheads and 2 Morderes

2 Humans, 8 Beheads and a staggering 10 Morderes.
That's a lot of resistance and we are not fighting at full strenght.

But wait. It gets better...


Raguruzet will create a new Mordere each turn.
That's fine though. More experience for my murder machines.


So let's prepare. I got this Damascus Sword from the Arena. So I was wrong when I said the rewards from the Arena were identical between the characters.
Compared to Toxa's Athena Helmet, it's a terrible reward. Athena Helmet was a D ranked head item, that granted a rather good defensive bonus + 10 magic resistance to every element.
The Damascus Sword can at best be used to kill Kyau more easily. It's not even a unique weapon if I remember correctly. We can create it later.


To add further insult to injury let's compare it to the Fire Arm. Anyways I remember to equip it this time.


Rimzan himself still has his Zweihander +2. Which I'm stealing once again.


Like any man, I'm checking the ladies out first. I can't believe Karis has access to Big armory, and is still running around with a polished up Spirit Knife. Or why she is still wearing Iron helmet and boots, when she has access to better equipment.
I'm gonna take a guess that it's probably a fashion statement or something. Fashion is pretty weird like that.


For a guy who is supposedly the lead industrialist in regards to Kartia. Raguruzet is sporting some surprisingly shitty equipment.
Also Karis is better armored than Raguruzet. The game might be racist, but atleast we don't have to worry about chain mail bikinis or skimpy outfits.





Alright, let's do this. First order of business is acquiring another Text.


I'm not gonna pretend that I remember what Text this is. It's a bit like Pokémon. I don't really care about their names, I just want them all.

Oh also, I created a bunch of Beheads. You might wonder what happened to the Kyau. Well I'm sad to say I DELETED it and created a Behead instead.
Creators of Phantoms can just instantly delete their existance. That's rather bleak, so let's just pretend we send it back to Vigilance HQ to make ourselves feel better.


Oh. Great. More Silk. Not like I have 150 of those by the end of this mission. Now I feel like I just got Socks for Christmas.

A typical thing, I'll often do in tactical games, is to wait for the enemy to get closer, so I can murder them next turn. Besides we are facing a superior force, so let's not rush to our deaths.




Interestingly enough we don't actually have to prevent the enemy from entering the Shrine. There are no area to protect and they won't actually try to rush for the entrance.


This is also the first mission where I even bothered to heal up. This is the lowest ranking heal. "Medicine" healing 45 hp.


You might notice that I'm running this mission a bit fast now.


And that is because...


...It really...


...Isn't that interesting...


...And I don't have anything particularly interesting to talk about...


...Except this handy feature...


...Oh look Troy is here...


...And that makes this the end of the mission.

WHAT? Yes. This is a Defend for X Turns mission and it's really boring. There are no curve balls, no enemy reinforcements, no tricks. Nothing interesting really.
Raguruzet and Karis doesn't even rush you with all their guys. Half of the enemies are just standing around moving 1 square, like they knew it would be pointless to move.
Hell, you only have 5 turns, Because Troy shows up at turn 6. Because of the massive amount of Morderes, you can't rush to Raguruzet and Karis and take them out.
You simply don't have the offense to do it in time. Nor do you have the defense to take the massive Mordere assault. And if you even get close enough you'll get blasted by magic.

In short it's a really bad mission where there aren't even any optional objectives to make it more interesting. In fact, Raguruzet doesn't accomplish anything here, and we don't learn anything new in regards to Akueldo.

This is why the strong point of the game is the story. Don't worry too much though, not every mission is like this. But I'm just a little disappointed that they had nothing better to put here than this.
Anyways, back to "The Kartia of our Lives."


"Great! The tables have turned!"
"Sir. There is no reason to pursue this. Our time is almost..."
"I guess playtime is over."






Right, so Raguruzet and Karis attack the shrine to attempt to steal the World Tree. They waste their time doing nothing after defeating the first Shrine Warrior. Who did manage to escape and warn Lacryma.
In the mean time they take no effort in stealing the World Tree, just standing around making small talk. They fight Lacryma for a bit and then suddently "run out of time" and retreat as Troy shows up.

What the hell were their goal? It's not like they had a new phantom they needed "battle data" or whatever. Why did Raguruzet have to be here to achieve nothing? I... I just don't understand this at all.
I don't even think it's brought up again. Just... Why?


"I'm glad everyone is Ok."
"Thanks for your help, Posha."
"I thought I could show off."


Right so. Think didn't really go all that well. I mean yeah, for every phantom I lost, I took 2 down. But Raguruzet created a new one each turn. So it's actually 4-3 in their favor.


Oh and we are now sitting at 250 Silk Kartia. Man getting that 10 Silk from the urn is gonna be a game changer you guys.


"An honorable wound..."
"A wound is a wound. By the way, why are you back Rimzan?"
"On the way to Pentagram, I heard that the Shrine was under attack. That's why I turned back."

To wake myself up from the comatose combat section, I decided to break out Rimzan's... well this.


"Why did they attack the Shrine?"
"They wanted the World Tree."
"World Tree?"
"The best material for Kartia. It's so expensive that it makes thieves want to steal it."

I think you'll find that thieves are gonna steal regardless of value. Shit, the gas station I worked at as a teenager, had a frigging dog bowl stolen. A DOG BOWL.
On the other hand, shit were weird. Had a guy trying to rob us with a spray painted toy gun. Except they didn't paint the inside of the barrel and my manager could see it was orange inside.
So he laughed at him and told him to get the hell out. Another time, some dissatisfied customers who were mad at the owners tried to bomb the station with some illegal fireworks.
It could have been very dangerous, except these were idiots who had set the fuse too short, and ended up blowing themselves up. Lucky(?) for me, I weren't on shift either time. But I did
get to see the surveillance cameras. Well that went off on a tangent. Back to the LP


"Thieves are getting stronger. Beating a Shrine Warrior."
"The one we fought used strong magic."

We never actually saw Raguruzet or Karis cast any spells.

"I have nothing to do with this."
"Troy, what are you talking about."


The Kyau that I deleted sent back to Vigilance HQ is running around here.

"What's on your mind?"
"This is their chance to get the World Tree with minimum damage. I don't think they backed off because they were scared of us."
"In any case, we're in bad shape. They know how we are."
"We should have gone after them."
"What's done is done... If they come back, we have to worry about the town."
"Yes..."
"We should put up barriers."
"Where is a good place to evacuate the people?"
"The Encrypter School will be a safe place."

Wait hold on now. I have to call this into question. First off, why doesn't Rimzan have a clear idea of where to evacuate people? He is the Leader of Kainas. You'd imagine this would have come up in a theoretical scenario at some point.
Did he never think about this? Secondly, I think the Encrypter School would be the worst place to put people. We know it's full of Text, and that someone has recently attempted to steal Text from the Encrypter School.
It wouldn't be unreasonable to think that the Encrypter School might be a secondary target. They should also know that Zakuro was sprung from prison about now. Because otherwise, holy shit are there no prison guards in Rebus?
If they don't have any suspicions that Zakuro is affiliated with the thieves by now, then just.. Wow. I have no words.


"Lacryma, call the Knights and Duran to come back."
"Yes sir."
"Troy, you talk to the School."
"They owe me big. They better help out."
"Tell the Shrines to shut down the outer gates.
"Yes sir."

Note: Rimzan doesn't even call Posha by name when he addresses her. My theory is that he forgot who she was. I know I have to spend 5 minutes remembering who she is.


But he remembers Kun, who he only just met on the battlefield. Maybe he remembers people by how they murder other people?
"Oh yeah, that guy with the exploding sword! Now I remember."

"Let's do it!"


The Kyau was appearently pretty pissed about getting deleted sent back to Vigilance HQ. It takes it's revengeance on Troy's butt.


Pissed off, Troy chases the Kyau. Rimzan looks on in disbelief, shaking his head in sadness.

Elsewhere, there is scheming to be had.






WINTER IS COMING! I'm sorry, I don't actually know any relevant farming jokes.


But here is a face we haven't seen in quite a while. Interesting to know that a Cardinal is scheming with Raguruzet. Because of course he does.
Also, the flow of conversation is really stiff here. Also there's a bunch of names being dropped here, but none of them have any portraits so...

Cardinal Shelpati "We need someone who is willing to sacrifice their life for the mission. Someone who can protect society."
Cardinal Charimate "Chai, you have been Bishop a long time. You should watch what you ask for."
Bishop Chai "Excuse me, your Eminence."
Inspector "If we can't find anyone, we will postpone this until Aile returns."
Bishop Nirigiri "May I speak?"
Inspector "What is it?"
Bishop Nirigiri "I know someone. She's 18 years old, but she's a Shrine Warrior. She's also pretty good with magic."
Cardinal Charimate "What's the difference between this person and everyone else?"
Bishop Nirigiri "She's the daughter of Kainas."

Uh oh. Why do I feel like this might be bad news?

Cardinal Shelpati "The daughter of Kainas?"
Cardinal Charimate "I thought the daughter of Kainas had died?"
Inspector "That's exactly what I heard. I don't know if it's true."
Bishop Nirigiri "Neither did I when I hard the news."

Let me get this straight. Because this sounds really, really stupid. So as we know Lacryma is a pretty big deal in Kainas, being the daughter of a hero obviously. She is working at rather high profile position in Vigilance.
Not only is she the treasurer of Vigilance, but she also leads it in the absence of Rimzan. She isn't exactly being secretive about her identity either. How the fuck did Pentagram not know of her existence before?
They fund Vigilance. Have they never heard of oversight? Do they keep tabs on nobody? They can't even sniff out the worst kept "secret" in the world. The incompetence is staggering.


Inspector "Let's continue. If what you said is true, why is it important?"
Bishop Nirigiri "Are you familiar with the theory the Encrypter School is giving?"
Cardinal Charimate "About how the power of Kartia is based on the user? It's not confirmed yet."

I think they're refering to the effect of the same spell being cast by different people. Not that one person can cast higher level magic over another. That's a result of studying and can be trained after all.
So it shouldn't be a theory.

Bishop Nirigiri "We can't deny it either. Druids can easily raise the World Tree. There must be some truth to it."

Just because Druids are pretty good at botany, doesn't mean they are super great magicians. Even though they are, because what kind of elf would you be if you weren't good at magic.

"Besides that theory, we have only a few women Inquirers. We should begin her training."
Cardinal Shelpati "If she is the daughter of Kainas. This is interesting..."

Well I guess Lacryma is gonna get a promotion. Apparently, she is capable enough on her own to get recognized for her ability and not just the fact that she is some famous dude's daughter. Regardless of whether she wants to or not.
But it's interesting how Druids and Kartia ability were brought up in the same conversation as the church is looking for some kind of Martyr. They also seem to think that the daughter of Kainas fit the profile of
the Martyr they're looking for. One could make a guess as to the circumstances of Lacryma's lineage. But for now that's still speculation.





Inspector "Are you sure she's the daughter of Kainas?"
Bishop Nirigiri "I'm sure Aile knows more about it than I do..."
Inspector "What is the meaning of this! Aile, explain this!"



Well, Well. The Shrines are looking for someone who is willing to sacrifice everything. This person also need special skill in Kartia. And they seem to think that Kainas's daughter is the best prospect.
It's totally coincidental that said persons last name is Christi. Not at all Jesus we're talking about here. We also know that the Shrines have some involvement with Akueldo. But how far that extends is yet to be
seen. Is Beltschumelt acting alone, or is the whole religious body involved? We also know that Kainas is dead. That explains why such a high profile person have never entered the narrative at this point.

Now, we also know that Akueldo have attacked several Shrines. But how successful they were is still in question. the Shinon World Tree and Kainas World Tree remains safe at least.
Most mysteriously is why Raguruzet personally attacked the World Tree in Kainas. He is one of the heads of the whole thing, it sounds like an unnecessary risk. Another question is why
he didn't take the World Tree when he had the opportunity.

Here is my personal theory. The attack on the Kainas Shrine, was to draw security to that area, leaving the Encrypter School open, or with less security.
We know that Akueldo will successfully steal Text from the Encrypter School this time. We learn this from Toxa's version of the attack on Kainas.
It's also why he didn't steal the Kainas World Tree. After all if it was stolen, then there wouldn't be anything to draw security to.

We also know that the reason the thieves attacked the Shinon Shrine, was to get back Mona.
Raguruzet might be attacking other Shrines, to make it look like the World Trees are the objective and thus obscuring the true goals until it's too late.

Vigilance are still only suspecting Akueldo to be common thieves. In fact Vigilance doesn't even know of the name Akueldo yet.
Though by now they should be suspect of the strength of these thieves.

Lacryma Chapter 3 Episode 5 END