Part 68: To The Sealed Cave

Chapter 35: To The Sealed Cave






Well, according to legend... The Holy King Altrius fought his final battle against the Darkness somewhere in this vicinity.

Usage tip: "in the vicinity of (location)," not "in this vicinity." The former is typical usage, the latter sounds awful.
I see... it certainly is a treacherous mountain. I don't think we can count on our supply lines being effective from here out.

Similarly, the idiom here is, "from here on out," not "from here out."
Master Altrius, the enemy is here!
They appear to the Fourth Imperial Army Division.
They're still around? Those jackals... They won't leave, even after the main Imperial force has withdrawn. We have no choice. We're going to break through!

Errands are back, but we still don't really care. I don't think we're going to get to any of the goodies in the later Quests this time around. I send Rukia out to get 5 Topaz Amulets anyway. Why not?

Altrius learns Retaliation 1 through 3 (+counter), Selmer learns Invoke Mind 3 (+magic/+magic damage), Sasha learns Foresight 3 (+dodge), and Alicia is exactly 5 experience away from Divine Seal 5. Not that I really need it this map, but it's the principle of the thing. Similarly, Marie's only 105 experience away from Oratoriorae; the goal here will be to get both of them to their respective final skills.




I think the developers were just really proud of this map design.





It's the most-reused by far; I think we're up to at least five or six different versions? And if you count the ten tutorials, then there's only seventy maps or so in the entire game. It's really common!

I could detail the enemy spells. I'm not going to! They all awful spells -- Fire Raid, Spark Edge, or Ice Spear. Similarly, none of the Armors have any skills.




Behold: the one competent enemy. He only counts because I have to remember he exists so I don't let him kill Marie, a problem I could solve by just throwing her on the Amulet bandwagon. Everything else is trivialized by Amulets.

The difficulty picks up after this, but this map is, again, one you blow past in ten minutes and then forget about entirely. The repeated map doesn't help.

At least there's conversations again.

Margus and Kay


You know about this too, Margus?
Well, yeah. You know the story... Holy King Altrius, Spanta in hand, fighting the Order of Anrah... This was the Order's last big stronghold. Must be why the magic here's so thick here that even I can feel it.
I guess it's just an enchanted place... It was probably easier to seal away the Darkness here.
Mind, it'd be easier to use the Darkness here, too.
Then we should hurry.
As if you had to say it...
I know, I know.

Altrius and Alberich


Looks like General Ernest isn't with them, though.
Thank goodness for small favors. If Ernest was leading them, I doubt we'd get away without any casualties.
But then... where IS he?
That's his style.


Got it. We've come too far to die here.

I'd buy the idea that Ernest is an expert in the use of cunning tricks if not for the whole Leeroy Jenkins incident before the route split. "Screw the ambush, charge!" Kind of undercuts the credibility there.

Aegil and Owl


Do you know it?
I thought about setting up my base here, a long time ago. After all, it's where Holy King Altrius had his big showdown. I thought the priests that came here on pilgrimages might make easy prey.
Whatever happened to being a gentleman thief?
Hey, priests probably rake in tons of cash. What's the harm? ...Doesn't matter, though. It didn't go very well.
Whyever not?
One of the guys in my gang was a hardcore religious nut. He was yelling at me that we couldn't fight priests of Verona here, of all places.




Seriously, the more of Aegil I see, the more I get the impression that she's really more interested in being Verona's Queen than its Pope. For a religious authority, that is a remarkably indifferent response to the idea of attacking priests.

There's not going to be much strategy here. The enemies are weak and few in number, and the terrain isn't a serious impediment.



Still going to show the blow-by-blow.



How else are you going to get the full picture of how utterly unthreatening this map is?



The ability of Tiger Fangs to clip through walls makes Sasha very good in this kind of map. She'll be able to use the 1 OB from killing this War Mage (thanks to Lion Strike; she barely hit it, so every bit of OB boost helps) to kill the Sniper next turn.

Selmer, meanwhile, is a lot less useful; the map's too wide and it's filled with terrain and walls, so Yumil Magna's linear nature is problematic. He still has his uses, though, since a maxed-out Yumil Magna is hilarious overkill, and we've passed just about everything that's strong enough to survive it.



Movement. Marie's ten spaces away from the Sniper, but I doubt he has True Arrows 5.

Enemies remain unthreatening. High-water mark for enemy damage: 95 (Fire Raid against Alicia).



Selmer has enough defense and enough HP to survive one hit, and Marie can heal him afterward. I could have had her Holy Favor him up and then blast him this turn, but I wanted her to heal Sasha for experience. It's a pittance, but she's very close to 45.



Izuna isn't really necessary here. Alicia gets the kill to reach level 42, Altrius moves next to her to heal her if necessary (she's near a lot of mages, and quantity is its own kind of quality), while Sasha takes out the Sniper.



The Aegil school of linear spellcasting: Tank a hit, paste them immediately afterward. The enemies are sad enough that it works. And Marie gets 38 experience from the heal afterward! If I get anything better than a Victory, she should be able to reach level 45 afterward.



The War Mage Alicia is attacking here had Ice Spear and no one was in his line, so he retreated last turn.



Altrius tries to follow up, but gets countered. Oh, Altrius.



Sasha is here to take out any War Mages that hide in the wasteland with Tiger Fangs. She has plenty of Gems to build OB with.



Alicia's high MC makes her a priority target. Thankfully, she's tough enough to take it.

Sasha uses a Hero Gem for 1 OB. That's all she'll need for a War Mage.



Of the remaining War Mages, one has Ice Spear. She can definitely take one more spell.



Armor down. There's one more down below, but he has very little health left.



That's the two last War Mages.



The injured Armor made the mistake of ending his turn next to Izuna.



And with that, the map is over!



Definitely enough to get Marie to level 45!


He could be lying in wait just ahead.


I hope not.
You're leading an army. Have more confidence. It could cause problems if you didn't.

Weird tense change there.
It's not that I'm not confident, but...

Okay, Altrius, now you're just lying.
I see. In that case... Cheer up. Everyone here is looking to you.



Total number of resets since chapter 20: 4 (+0)

Next time: Burning World