Part 46: The Hammer Comes Down

It is the most metal chapter title so far!



What's not so metal is that Kate comes with these skills and nothing else and now I've spent all my skill points getting her up to scratch.

Again.

Fuck me.



Oh, oh! And! While we're on the subject of things that are not metal? The fact that I totally forgot that Corselia forces her way into this battle whether you want her to or not! But I'm getting ahead of myself.



First, let's take a moment to admire this beautiful sight. Goddamn 90 MAG! But the fun thing is this is going to break triple digits before long. Hell, probably by level 25 or so.



Anyway!



It's time to head to Graska, but the Mido Shallows are in the way, and it's a red dot on the map. As always, that means Shit Is About To Go Down.

Is it about me being supposedly kidnapped?

No, even worse! According to this, we assassinated the Kooluk Emperor!

Oh god damn that is not good.



For a number of reasons.



Though, I appreciate how they made the effort to create a poster for her to hold.

Hang in there, Corselia. We'll get to the bottom of this.

We'll get to the bottom of Kooluk's deepest and dankest dungeon if they get our hands on us, is what you mean.

I wonder if this is another one of Iskas's dirty tricks...

"...or if we really did kill the emperor and I just can't remember "



Suddenly, from off screen!



I get the feeling it would be easier for him to carry the kangacorn.



Look at this guy!

So... that would mean he's next in line for the throne?

That's usually how these things work, yeah. Which means if we did kill the emperor, maybe he's here to thank us for his promotion!

You filthy criminals, hand Corselia over at once!

...or maybe not.



Corselia is somewhat less kidnapped than advertised.

Please, wait. Let me explain...

Silence, you insolent scum!
You had your chance. Your defiance will be paid for in blood!

He seems like a reasonable dude. Let's kick his ass!



This is another area that will open up to monster hunting once we've cleared it, and I'll be coming back here at one point to hunt frogs because I need a hide or two for a quest.



For now though, there are only generic Kooluk soldiers. Oh, and a slightly different victory condition. Fuck you game, you're not the boss of me! Even if you're forcing me to use Corselia even though I haven't upgraded her skills or anything because I wasn't planning to bring her along.

I decided to keep Andarc because I spent all that time and effort getting him up to scratch, so Lazlo is sitting this one out. He could use the break. And since the place is full of naturally occurring water terrain, I made sure to come here on a water day so Mitsuba can take advantage of it.



First up, let's have a look at Kate and her Eagle Rune, the throwing weapon command rune. It's pretty good, and a big reason why the weapon is so great. The second level tech is basically Shredding Claw but with a little more range in form of a T-shaped AoE in front of the user. Those three guys are toast.



Boom! It does unbalance the user though, but eh.



Martin will spout a line when his first turn comes up, and then proceed to do nothing until we've almost cleared out all his dudes. Okay then!



I imagine he's pretty proud of Corselia. That's a one-shot. Once archer less to worry about!



She's... not quite up to Andarc's level of fuckery, though. That is Thunder Runner.



The effects are suitably impressive.



An enemy caster tries to take revenge. It's... not quite as effective.



Here's the third level Eagle tech. It deals 1x damage to all enemies within normal attack range, and like the second level one it also unbalances the user. Worth it, though.



However...



...killing those three dudes causes six more to spawn in.



Flare gives no fucks and has a nice chat with Corselia right in the middle of the battlefield.

Yes!

Let's do it!

And they finally learn Princess Attack.



We'll have to wait a while to show it off, however. Corselia isn't quite as effective against enemies that actually have MDF...



...but Mr. I Have Over 90 MAG suffers no such problems. I think that guy was trying to cast Explosion or something, but obviously I never found out because Andarc.



Another pretty good level!



And here's the first level Eagle tech, Clairvoyance, which triples the range of a thrown weapon. That's six tiles! Many enemies can't even move that far.

This one won't be moving anywhere ever again.



Artificial "intelligence": one dude throws a Flowing Force Bead that... doesn't change terrain he's standing on (natural water) but gets rid of the lightning terrain effect his buddies were benefiting from.

One of them quickly re-applies it, though.



Another one charged up, failed to hit Kate, and got skewered by Kika. No one is surprised by this.



Native terrain? Mitsuba don't need no native terrain!



...okay that was kind of mean.



That's better!



Corselia takes up position...



...and Flare sets off Princess Attack. It's basically Pirate Family Attack but with sparkles instead of axes.



OW



Seneca soon gets her revenge. I was hoping that would kill the guy, but... no. Still, can't complain too much when it results in more numbers. Kate ends up finishing the job on her next turn.



Before that, however...

Yes, what is it?

I just wanted to thank you for rescuing me.

This is starting to reach "tell Flare she's a princess and shouldn't be on a battlefield" levels of repetitive.

No, no... Kyril is the one you should thank.

I wanted to thank you too, Andarc.

Really? Well... you're welcome.

I feel like I can really count on you.

Likewise.

That's nice, now go kill more dudes.



Actually we're nearly out of dudes, but Martin finally gets his butt in gear and... doesn't accomplish much of anything. Okay then!



As tempting as this looks, that archer would take a turn before this resolves and interrupt the casting, so...



...we'll have to make do with this. Kyril takes some 70 points of damage, but, eh. We're almost done anyway.



And Andarc profits. Despite the victory condition being to beat all enemies but Martin, there seems to be no reason not to give him a good smacking.



Flare out-archers the Kooluk archer and that's a wrap!



Bah.



Can we hope that we've managed to beat some sense into Martin now? Or shocked some sense into him, even.

...

Well, at least he's not yelling at us any more. That's progress!

Mother was tricked by Iskas!

"He said you're a madman with the mane of a lion and that you're never home and... well okay she wasn't exactly tricked but he's still a douche!"



Father...

Corselia. Imperial blood flows in our veins. We rule this empire. You may still be a child, but the empire needs you. Do not let your emotions distract you from what is important.
Now, come with me.

No, she's with me now. You can't have her.

No! You don't understand!

Corselia!

I'm not leaving Kyril and them until you listen to what I have to say!
You're the one being distracted by Iskas!!

...

I've traveled all over this empire running away from Iskas. And... it's opened my eyes. You can't tell me what to do anymore! I'm not a child!

You're ELEVEN! That counts as a child even in JRPG land.



Corselia... Do you mean to say you've been running around all over the place with that fragile little body of yours?

I'm not fragile!!

She sounds so indignant

My dear Corselia... How you've grown...
Fine. Perhaps Iskas truly is as treacherous as you say. If so, he will pay dearly...

Martin climbs off his kangacorn.



...damn it all.



But Kyril isn't going to back down from a challenge, so it's on!



In the same area!



With a different objective!

...unfortunately Kyril has been, shall we say... somewhat neglected. His skills aren't up to par, he's six levels behind Martin, and... well, to put it simply he's kind of fucked.



He's going to need all the stat boosters for this.


Show me what you've got!

Martin is kind of a powerhouse.



On his first attack, he'll activate his magic sword rune, and it will hurt.



To get around this, we'll have to employ strategy. Now, it took all the SPD boosters I had to get Kyril to act first (because if he doesn't, Martin is in range to murder him right in the face), but they're close enough that they'll sometimes double-turn each other. Right now, Kyril has just acted, but Martin will take two turns before Kyril's next, likely because casting a Rage Force sets you back a little more than just waiting, which is what Martin will do on his first turn.



However, due to our positioning, we're getting a free shot at him after that. I gave Kyril a Berserker Belt, and he'd be pretty fucked without it. This only deals 0.8x normal damage, but it avoids counters and we don't have to be all up in Martin's face to do it, and I'm all for these things!



Oh. Yeah, and I'm all for this, too.



With 6 MOV, Kyril should be able to position himself where he won't get hit.



And once Martin chases after him, it's just a matter of finishing the battle.

I see I underestimated you!

Silverbergs got nothing on me, baby



Kyril gets another level...



...and an S-rank for beating Martin without taking a scratch.



Now if only it had been something we can actually use.



I didn't assassinate any emperors today, but I kicked the butt of a future one. Good enough!

Father...

I've made up my mind, Corselia. I must go and ask Iskas a few questions. Will you wait for me?

What? You know where he is? Take me with you! I must, uh, "ask" him a few "questions" too!







Kyril! We must go after my father!

I know. Let's hurry!

Eh, he'll keep.

Kyril!

What? It's an RPG! We'll arrive just in time, same as always.

Come on, we're all going!

And so we will.



Next time!



But first, we're going to take a little nap.

That's right. And he was despised for it. Finally, one day, he was attacked. I rushed to help, but it was too late.

Fucking hell, don't tell me I'm out of rest scenes with people that are not terrible in them!

That's unfortunate. I'm sorry.

I'm not. Warlock was annoying to recruit, slow as fuck, and his death seems to be causing Pablo mental anguish.

Did he tell you anything? Even the smallest hint as to the secrets of the Rune Cannons would help.

Master wouldn't tell me anything. Or, rather, whenever I tried to learn about Rune Cannons, he would avoid the subject.
Oh, but there was that one time he told me to avoid tinkering with the Muzzle...

Suikoden IV actually hinted very vaguely at there being something about the cannons' muzzles!



(Then it said absolutely nothing more on the subject, because this is Suikoden IV we're talking about.)

Interesting... So the key lies in the Eye, the Rune Cannon's Muzzle.

God damn that's a lot of capital letters and I'm pretty sure we all knew this already.

I suppose so.

Well, all except Pablo because he's been fused to the bench since the trip into the Obel ruins and no one cared to inform him what happened.

I wish I could have met this man.

Yeah... Two brilliant sorcerers like yourselves would've had a lot to talk about.

Indeed...



I'm not that impressed with Simeon and from the looks of it the thread isn't either because Corselia keeps getting more votes.

Speaking of which! She'll be forcing herself into the party in the next fight too (damn it all) and what's more, we have a tiny party to work with. With the usual slot reserved for Lazlo, that only leaves three characters for you to vote on. Choose wisely!

(Or not, I suppose.)