Part 35: Sanctuary Campaign, Map Three, Part Three

The third Moon Fragment is located just northwest of the Captain's Ghost. Katashi isn't strong enough to handle it at the moment, so we'll have to come back later.



This is the eastern Orc town. My Irina's actually a bit understaffed, since most of my army is back in town - usually the enemy will be Modest or lower.



Yeah, Elementals are pretty awesome.



I also picked up Water Elemental along the way. Ice Bolt is always a nice spell to be able to cast.



Not a perfect win, but pretty good considering the enemy was at High difficulty. I think facing opponents much bigger than yours makes your final score higher.

Irina is strong leader, and good fighter. Has heart of wolf!

Ulagan! I'm thick skinned, most insults don't bother me. Except that one.

Watch your words, orc. People die for calling her this.

Now I can just imagine Irina walking through town, somebody calling her a Wolf... seconds before they're electrocuted to death with a Lightning Bolt.

We can't actually convert the Orc town yet - we need to control both first. We can still build structures, which will be automatically converted to the appropriate dwelling once we convert it.

May the powers of ice and frost crush your enemies, Daimyo.



I finally send the rest of my troops up to regroup with Irina (Town Portal is a wonderful thing). I give Katashi all my Sacred Kirin, so she can go back and get that third fragment. There's also a Marketplace just north of the eastern Orc town - I get a pair of +8 Adventure Movement boots for Irina.



The fourth Moon Fragment is also located just north of the Orc town. It's a fairly uneventful battle.



This is the army that's guarding the third Moon Fragment - hundreds upon hundreds of Cores. Katahsi has a mere 12 Sacred Kirin, and the battle reads as Deadly.

I think we both know how this is going to go.



I was hoping not to lose any Sacred Kirin at all... but I'll take it. I think I've gotten pretty good at abusing Frozen effects and Regeneration.





Once you collect all four fragments on a single Hero, the sidequest is completed, and our reward is this. This is the only way to access the Summon Phoenix spell, and allows us to summon 3 Phoenix per battle. Phoenix don't regenerate on their own like Earth Elementals, but their damage is unhealable and they're immune to offensive magic. It also carries onto the following maps, which is pretty darn sweet. (For the Phoenix's stats, check out the third part of the Bestiary.)



We also get the location of our Grail, I mean, Tear of Asha. Turns out it's just a little east of the Western Orc town. How convenient! It's just where we're heading.



The defence at the western Orc town is even weaker than the eastern one. I crush it in an almost unremarkable battle.



It's fun to point out things like this. Wanizame have a mere 5 movement, which means they'll usually take about 2-3 turns to reach the other side. Step them into the Sacred Kirin's Mist, and they'll get another turn...



And into another patch near the enemy lines, and they can now reach the enemy troops on the other side.

Sacred Kirin are pretty rad, yeah.

May the waters cleanse and purify you, Daimyo.

Three sacred shrines down, one more to go. We can convert the town now if we wish, but doing so triggers one other event, so we're gonna hold off just a bit.



Now that we have the Tear of Asha, we can use it in one of any town of our choice. (We could also use it in our Stronghold towns, but they're going to converted soon anyway.) The Tear of Asha structures for each town all give 5000g/day and +50% growth, as well as one unique effect. The Sanctuary one gives all our attacks and spells that would normally Chill the opponent to have a 50% chance of inflicting the Frozen effect instead.

'But ApplesandOranges, how could we possibly abuse such an effect?' Why, I'm glad you asked! Katashi, would you like to demonstrate?



I give Katashi all my Yuki-Onna, and split them into as many stacks as possible. It doesn't matter how weak they are, even a stack of 1 is enough.



Yup, this looks like a good stack to test it out on. Notice the huge army disadvantage we have.



We then proceed to massacre them.

Each attack by a stack of Yuki-Onna (or Snow Maidens) has a 50% chance of halting a stack in its track. We have seven stacks, so there's a pretty good chance of just chainfreezing a stack, slowly but steadily whittling them down. On the off chance you don't manage to Freeze them, we can still get a guaranteed Freeze with Ice Bolt, and once Katashi gets Summon Water Elemental we can also use it for an additional Ice Bolt every 2 turns. It's not a perfect strategy - as you can see, every now and then a stack slips through, though they never get to my stacks, as you can imagine. Creatures like Griffins can still hit us due to their special abilities like Battle Dive, and shooters don't care about this strategy at all. But it's still a nice way to bend walker stacks over our knee.



And so we put them out of their frozen misery.



Northeast of where the Tear of Asha was found, we can find the other Orc Hero (Ruqav for Blood, Ulagan for Tears) just chilling about. We can't interact with them till we finally convert one of the Stronghold towns...

Click here to listen to the conversation!


Irina saved town, first. Only way to do it. Victor take spoils. Even Orcs do this.

No! Is Orc town, not Naga town. Should pray to Mother Earth, not Shalassa. Ruqav fights for Mother Earth.

Stupid Orcs. Even when you help them, they figure out a way to pick a fight.

Mother Earth, give Ruqav strength! Naga warlord come to destroy your children.

Ruqav then turns hostile and will start coming after our towns. Since we're right next to him, Irina murders his army before he even gets a single turn to move.



We've been steadily gaining levels like crazy on this map - for reference, the level cap for it is 24, and there are loads of neutral stacks we can fight if we ever need to.

Next time, we finally finish this map.