Part 26: UPDATE 21: A Legendary Land

Only a little bit of renaming at this point -- I want to stay away from the Stone Golems for now.



These names won for the Pumpkinheads since they're kind of cute and I didn't get the other reference.



Drug jokes and puns together combine everything best in life.

So if you'll recall, three updates ago we were given two possible paths to Wentinus, the seat of power in the Western Region. Since we've successfully completed one of them, we now have the option of going to Wentinus and having a little tete-a-tete with Yumil.



Or we could go back and do the other path too. Sure, why not.

Update 21: A Legendary Land



Semi-spoilery discussion of the mission name, tagged just in case:  Oddly enough this place really is a Legendary Land, with all kinds of prophecies and shit, but that has no (outright stated) bearing on this mission and is not explained until much, much later. 



Hugo we never talk anymore

Would it kill you to make a little small talk before the briefing? Maybe give me a compliment or two? I'm more than just a sword-hand you know!

: "Let's get started... Mursunny will be our headquarters for this campaign."

Maybe I'm just a huge dork but Mursunny totally sounds like a Pokemon name.



: "We must take the ruins, and secure the road to Castle Talpaea."

Pretty sure we already secured it, bro, but come to think of it that was like two months ago. Before we spent like all of Preta doing laps around Crenel Canyon trying to find winged drifters to press-gang. I guess we could probably stand to secure it AGAIN.

Also, at least we're going in the right direction this time.



: "They seem intent on stopping us... They're not normal soldiers, but some type of militia, perhaps."

Oh god, more homeless, they just won't leave me alone

: "We don't know who they are, so be careful. Avoiding the road is a good idea, even if it costs us time. That can't be the Central Division already. So, they must be part of the Western Division. Whoever they may be, I am certain they're our enemy."

Hugo, has it ever occurred to you that maybe our scouts just aren't very good? I mean, yeah, they told us that there were a bunch of dudes in the middle of the map, but they could honestly just guess that and be right nine missions out of ten. Who are we even sending out there? It's that messenger guy, isn't it? He's fired. Let's get to work.



"That's all you have to say? Hugo, we really need to have a serious discussion about where this relationship is going."
"man why do you always wanna TALK after"



Give me a second to gather up the shattered pieces of my heart and I'll be ready to start.



Flying units like Sheen's are useful for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that they can see further than other units. Compare the view around my HQ before he was dispatched to the view afterward. Looks like we've got some visitors already.



Huh. Goblins.

Y'know I'd gotten so distracted by Lodis apparently invading that I almost forgot completely about the OTHER reason we're all dead. Well, let's go see what they want. Maybe they're nice goblins? Those have to exist SOMEwhere in fiction, right? I think the Harry Potter ones were ok.



You're up, Katreda. Consider this an audition.



: "......Ugh... Be... Begone..."

See kids, this is why it's a terrible idea to get drunk the night before your big battle with the demonic hordes against a political splinter group. It'll be time for your big badass pre-fight quip that should have your enemies totally quaking in their boots and you won't be able to croak out more than four syllables without vomiting.



Also your head will feel like someone was dropping giant pumpkins on it over and over, pretty much constantly until like 2:30 PM.



So yeah, not a great first showing for Katreda. Offensively, the Pumpkinheads rocked shit, yeah, but this is a unit that requires plenty of defensive power due to the priest being pretty constantly preoccupied with healing the Pumpkinheads, and Valkyries aren't really the best choice of frontliner for that reason. Also, some heavy frontline power to get through to the pumpkin-softened back rows and finish them off would be nice. Paladins would be better. Paladins are always better than everything. Unfortunately, I don't have any spare dudes besides Jager (who is a Wizard and doesn't count). PICTURED: One of the valks (Comet, I think?) failing to stand up to repeated critical hits and about half a second from dying (I was a LIIIIITLE too fast on the screenshot button ).



What a mess. Time to clean it up with this new toy I got.



The Pedra of Bane will spawn a big hole in the ground that lobs the final boss from Kirby 64 at your enemies. Unfortunately it only picked two targets and stopped once they were both dead. That Goblin would keel over in a stiff breeze at this point.



Luckily this all happened at my HQ which made it a pretty simple fix. 3 Altars remaining.



In the north we have... oh COME ON this was TOTALLY MY IDEA <> Urgh, this is gonna be SUCH a pain to get rid of.



She won an initial skirmish against Freddie due to showering pumpkins all over Reynolds and Panic, but after doing this she figured her job was done and turned around to seek some healing.



Thing is, at the time she was still directly next to my HQ because she won the battle. Troi had a few choice words to say to her regarding work ethic and the importance of finishing what you start.



WORTH IT

Okay, what I'm totally and completely sure was the largest threat in this mission is dealt with. We've got some more ugly on the way, though.



NO, AI. The leader goes BEHIND the meatshields. BAD.



Ho hum. Oh hey look, a new character type, I bet that'll totally end up being the only interesting thing about this unit.



... You're serious. TWO back-row Cockatrices. Really. WELL. First things first, I should probably describe Freyas.

Freya

The upgraded Valkyrie, the Freya continues their role of ideally being suitable for either front or back row. As always, though, adaptability comes at the price of specialization. Dragon Masters are better in the front; Sorceresses are better in the back. On the plus side, though, where Paladins and Black Knights get first-tier magic in the back row, Freyas get second-tier magic (since Valks already had first-tier). Which is kind of cool.



Anyway. I'm much more concerned with the cockatrices at this moment. Time to rearrange Guy's unit a little bit.



As I've mentioned before in their class description, Cockatrices placed in the back row will use a Petrify attack. It looks like this. Petrified characters cannot attack and will remain petrified until you use a Revive Stone on them. If a unit has only Petrified characters left, it will immediately lose and Retreat as though all characters were dead. They still attract attacks, though, so killing stuff is still strictly better than petrifying it.



As I've mentioned in THEIR class description, though, Stone Golems are created in a very specific way.



This actually sort of makes sense. If you take a living construct made of a solid material and you change what that material is, there's no reason for it to stop living.



Cue repeated battles until eventually this happened...



...followed inevitably by this. That last Cockatrice is harmless now since it'll pretty much always be in the front row from here on out.



Hmmm. I'm beginning to suspect Asnabel was overstating how much Katreda liked shopping. Or maybe she's just boring. She's got a lot in common with Aisha. Anyway this shop didn't have much interesting; those Claymores probably won't do me much good since my remaining Fencers will get upgraded soon anyway.



I sent Sheen down to try to catch that leaderless unit, but couldn't do it without provoking that Cataphract. On his way back, he found this. It's required for Sirens.



As you can see, this cataphract will take a little more offensive power than Sheen's every-character-gets-two-attacks unit. Hm. That enemy insignia over the town image is something we haven't seen before. Ominous!



Hey, as long as I'm paying attention to Sheen: Due to their higher-than-normal Fatigue accrual rate, it's more important to outfit flying units with items than other units. Rather than just giving him some Power Fruits and calling it a day, I outfitted him with my standard unit kit (which I'll get around to giving to my other units one of these days now). Three Heal Packs, three Power Fruits, two Angel Fruits, a Revive Stone, and (just in case) a Quit Gate. A non-flying unit would probably get one or two Heal Seeds in place of Power Fruits.



Now then, time to start thinking about expanding off of my HQ. First order of business is sending Asnabel up to the ass-end of nowhere to take care of pretty much the only Chaotic stronghold on this map.



As you could see in the Sheen-items shot, I sent Ivory down to take care of Rhatt. As you can see from THIS shot, sometimes attacking Cataphracts with non-elemental physical hits is pretty slow going. Luckily I've still got dual mages in this unit.



Still ended up losing another character before finally killing him off. This is just not my night for Dragon Tamers. Well, rather than burning through ANOTHER altar of resurrection I'm just gonna keep Ivory on the backburner until she can get to a Witch Den.



There weren't even any enemy units up here. It was like put there JUST to waste my time or something.



WINNING



Oh hey, this would be that large concentration of enemy units my scouts told me about in terms as vague as possible. Let's see.



Leader alone in center column, and the first Venerable Dragon we've seen all game!

Venerable Dragon
When you level a Mature Dragon enough, it stops being mundanely badass and starts being legendarily badass. Depending on what element Mature Dragon it is, it will become a different type of Venerable Dragon. They get two elemental breath attacks in the front row, which is okay, but in the back row they get huge spells that hit all enemies and have a chance to cause status (in, yes, ALL enemies). I'll probably post art and (shorter) writeups for each individual flavor, because they look MUCH more distinct from each other than the Mature Dragons do.

Specifically we're looking at the Bane-element Tiamat here.

Tiamat

Big nasty-looking Bane-element piece of work. Its back-row attack, Evil Dead, has a chance to put all enemies to sleep (if you can give me a shot where you successfully put ALL enemies to sleep with a single Evil Dead, though, I will turn over all LP duties to you immediately (this will not happen)).

Anyway, we were looking at a huge bunch of enemy units. Continuing on:



Leader alone in center column and absolutely NOTHING else of interest.



Spellcasting leader alone in center column. DAMN that's a bad idea.



Another leader alone in the center column, aaaaaaaand



Huh. How sensible! Wasn't expecting that. And count the heads on that dog!

Cerberus

The upgraded Hellhound, and just as useful in mid-game as those were in early-game! Three attacks in front, still, and they also gain a unique back-row attack called Mesmerize which deals Bane damage, with splash and a chance to cause Sleep (which also splashes). Mesmerize is useful and everything, but I still like having these things in the front row better. They'll take your goddamn head off.



Mesmerize looks something like this! Troi couldn't quite close the deal on this guy, though -- he limped off home and I had to give up on him for now. Forget about that. Know who needs another chance? Katreda.



Exhibit A: Hell yeah.



Exhibit B: That's what I'm fucking talking about. (Still needs some third attacks, though, and then we'd have the most badass gimmick unit in the history of gimmicks.)



YOU ARE A SPELLCASTER. THAT GOBLIN ON THE LEFT DOES NOT NEED MORE PROTECTION THAN YOU.



Let's see what Evil Dead looks like.



</brucecampbelljoke>

As you can see, with Venerable dragon attacks you're dealing lighter damage; usually you're in it for the wide spread and the status effects. (Also all-enemies attacks don't hit the corners of the unit as hard.)



Oh, also never position your leaders like this. Seriously.



Up in the north, Asnabel completes his long trek back to civilization to find a Freya unit somewhat more traditional than the last one we saw.



Tier-2 magic, remember? Freyas aren't restricted to Air magic like Valks, but they'll almost always be using it anyway since their default weapon is the Air-element Thunder Spear. Tier-2 Air Magic looks kind of like this.



Yeah, that's why I prefer my magic to come from dedicated spellcasters.



See? For context, she blocked this magic attack and it still did 43 damage, suggesting 86 damage in ideal conditions. Combo magic is so sweet.



Dio got sent on a wild goose chase on the OTHER corner of the map from Asnabel's.



Yeah, Pumpkin Shower isn't that great when the unit leader is all the way in a corner by himself, see? (also I lost one heal and one Shower to sleep )



No big, it made THIS really easy.



Yeah apparently Orville got knocked so far off his stronghold that he got in a fight with Asnabel, who was on the other side of a goddamn river. Serves him right for winning a bullshit fight!



Without having to worry about stuff like "highways" or "bridges," Sheen is a mid-morale-stronghold-liberating MACHINE.



The existence of this item is pretty much inexplicable. It slows down the passage of time. SLOWS IT DOWN. In an OGRE game. If you can possibly derive any benefit from this, you are to be commended, because normally sloths can't play video games.



Yeah okay Sam? I know you have an Ogre and it probably seems really big and intimidating from up close, but after some of the other units I've seen on this map I don't really have a whole lot to say about yours.



Other than "bye" of course.



shut up shut up shut up



ALRIGHT two more units and some leaderless-mopping and it's boss time!



Hm. Kinnison is so unimaginably stupid as to defy explanation, but I guess they taught Ariel a thing or two in mermaid school! Sort of. She's using the WRONG meatshield, and one of her Knights is in the wrong row, but standing next to Kinnison is doing her a lot of favors.



Okay, game, it's honestly adorable that you thought I would appreciate this, but seriously, stop. I don't need any more of these.



Anyway where was I? Oh right, the boss.





...let's just get this over with.



uh, dude

i know you like hanging out with demons and you're trying to fit in but i'm pretty sure somewhere under that beard is a guy who is at least 80% human

: "...You are not wanted. ...Die!!"

MAN, what is it with the elderly and getting straight to business these days? I was expecting at LEAST 20 minutes of pointless story from either you or Hugo.



Well, allow me to follow suit and kill you before anyone on your team can get one action off.



All in all a subpar boss performance. The Templar guy from Azure Plains was much harder. 6/10. Would not fight again.



I reckon you'll have to try a little harder than that.



And then he falls down and dies directly behind his Ogre so you can't see it on camera. Jeez, this guy can't even DIE right.



Our new Best Wand (tied with Kerykeion) and Hardest To Pronounce Weapon (...actually ALSO tied with Kerykeion), Hraesvelg, is our reward for showing up at the castle and stabbing a guy repeatedly.



And we're back at the World Map! That's all we get this time because the game honestly wasn't expecting us to play BOTH Azure Plains and Mount Keryoleth. If we'd come here first, we'd have gotten Political Science 101 with Freddie and Ankiseth here instead of where we actually got it. NEXT TIME ON OGRE BATTLE: Finally finishing this long-ass arc.