Part 36: Chapter 25 – Runan’s desert adventures

Chapter 25 – Runan’s desert adventures



Welcome back. Today we’re going to pass the desert that lies between us and Lazeria in order to liberate the latter. Let’s get this show on the road.





The chapter is called “The desert storm”







: Such sturdy walls built in such a place will be impossible to overcome with normal methods. Either we attack from the front or we take a detour in the desert and take control of the southern fort. We have to choose one of these two ways, I suppose.

: A detour through the desert... Whatever we do, this is going to be a troublesome battle..

Well I’ll be going for the third option: total annihilation.







: But if you think those guys will go through the desert, no holding back! Show them how scary the Condor Corps can be!









Meet Mid-boss II through IV.




: I heard that around here precious treasures can be found at the drop of a hat, but if things go on like this I’ll be drying up before I find any! Ugh... Someone give me water...

Seems that it’s finally time to pick up Narcissus for good. It’s anoying since we have to ferry Runan through the desert and he gets slowed to a crawl. First of all let’s look at the opposition.








The northern forces consists out of Archers with 4-range bows, Armor Knights, one mage and one Ballista.



Both the northern and the desert forces are supported by a physic priest each.



Meanwhile the only thing remarkable about Zepp ist hat he moves instead of staying on his fort. As for the Condor Corps...











They are stronger than your regular enemies and have far better movement and will attack you together. They also have high defence and pack shields so magic is the way to go against them.



Narcissus himself hasn’t changed much since we last saw him in chapter 9.





We breach the first gate and Narron takes out the first archer. He gets a less spectacular level from it.





As for our strategy: The physical powerhouses take on the fort while the mages (and Runan) head south into the desert to take on the Condor Corps since they won’t be slowed down by the desert.







Meet Rebecca, a new staff chick for our army.

: This ’ere is my house. You collapsed in the desert, you see. And were about to die. What the heck happened?

: I fled from the valley of Zoa. Then I wanted to go back to the village I was born, Arcana, but I was caught by a sandstorm and....

: So that’s what happened. You’re a child of Arcana...

: Mister, do you know Arcana?

: Yeah. The so called Town of Mirages fouund in the desert. It’s been 40 years since I started looking for it. But you see, miss, now is no good. About two years ago, a sandstorm started and keeps on blowing today,a sif some kind of barrier was set up and no man can get close to Arcana.

: It can’t be... The what am I supposed to do?

: I don’t mean anything bad by this, but you should return to the city...





: Hm… this is what they call a déja-vu.





Samson kill another dude for a great level.





Samson murders another dude by throwing axes at him and Frau visits Rebecca.





: Yes. I want to help Garzel’s prisoner escape. If we don’t hurry, everyone will be used as a living sacrifice! I will pull out my courage and fight once again.

: I see. Then, if the path to Arcana were to open, I will let you know too. Stay strong, Rebecca. I’ll pray for the Goddess Utna to protect you.



Now this was easy right. We got a new recruit from it who is stat independent due to being a staff chick. There is a second character you can recruit here. Remember the blind chick that Kreiss met in Verge? Leteena? Yeah you can recruit her here if you fulfill her bullshit conditions. Meaning you have to:

1) Send Arkis and Kreiss to Holmes route in the first split

2) Visit Verge again with both present between Map 10 and Map 13

3) Visit Verge again between Map 13 and Map 15 with Kreiss having a Healing Drop in his inventory

4) Before the second split, between Map 19 and Map 23, you visit once more with an Amulet/Charm in Kreiss’ possession.

5) Lastly you have to defeat Marco, the guy from the Condor Corps, with Kreiss. Hopefully he turned out well enough or it’s going to be annoying as hell as he won’t be able to damage him.

Sounds mildly inconvenient? I guess, but none of this is mentioned in the game! How the hell you’re supposed to figure this one out is beyond me.

The reward? A staff chick with better stats than Rebecca but no need for it and the Silence Staff she comes with. Also she will leave you in the third route split and depending on your choice takes Kreiss with her. This can only be prevented by taking Ezekiel along with you and either forgo Narron or Lionel (or Lee/Ruka). In short not worth the effort. I would have done it to show it off but past the first scene nothing was translated and I fucked up somewhere (or it bugged out). So you have to take my ranting as substitution.





Back to our regular scheduled program. Our teams are still advancing down their paths through the fort/desert.





Rennie flurries an enemy to death and gets a good level out of it. Still Strength and movement would be highly valueable to have a future career.







I accidently used Aura Rain here which was stupid and not intended simply because between the two Physic assholes, the structures most people stand on and the Condor corps having healing items, no damage to important people was left. Simply too trigger happy.







The mage annoys us with his Blizzard ome which prevents counter attacks and Lionel kills another archer to reach lvl 20. He could certainly have done worse than Speed and Defense.











Strength, girl, get Strength!



Our desert troops finally advanced far enough to triggert he Condor Squad advancing on us. Be cautious when fighting them since as long as their leader lives they all support each other so dodging will be quite hard.



: Do not break formation. We 5 knights can use our full strength only if we fight as one. Good, let us go. We will show them that the Condor Corps is to be feared!





Simon here falls for the bait and gets severely hurt by Rishel.





Frau obliberates one of them with her Thunder Sword.



And Rishel hurt another one.







Rebecca heals Rishel and Meriah takes out Simon. Level could be worse than speed.





Lady, one good level in the past doesn’t mean you can start acting up again like you do here







Frau executes another Dragon rider and… you’ve got to be kidding me...







And Raffin and Rishel take out the last of them. We could easily finish the map now, once Runan moved his ass across the desert but there are still people to be sacrificed to the whims of the RNG.



Narron continues to do what he does best.





Now that is what I was talking about



Time for Lionel to promote.





Thanks to his movement lvl ups he is now as fast as people on horses In addition he can now use Swords and Axes as well.





The Last Archer falls and Narron caps strength.



Runan finally manages to reach Narcissus.







I think Eugen is less than pleased after what you did the last time Narcissus…

: Wha..? Old man, you’re still alive..?

: Anyway, you really are a man who never changes. Well, Lord Runan, let’s leave this man alone and continue onwards.

: Eh..? Lord Eugen, it is the wish of my life to get some water.... please.

: I won’t refuse if you want some water, but first give me back the money you stole from my army.

: Ye-Yes, of course. I will give it back.

: If you pull a nasty trick like this again, I won’t be so forgiving as this time! Is that clear!?

: Ye-Yes. I won’t do it a second time.

: Hmph, fine then. Here is some water. Quick, drink it up and then go back looking for treasures, for us this time.

: *gulp* *gulp* *gulp* Bwaah, I’m alive again. Old man you better remember this. This is a debt I’m gonna repay for sure.

: You better remmeber this as well! I’m not going to let you out of my sight again!

: Tch, it’s serious business this time...





Narcissus gives us back our money and starts treasure hunting. He grabs a magic potion not far from his starting position.





The boss starts engaging us in the form of Samson. Meanwhile Narcissus is grabbing another treasure.





Rishel kills one of the priests with a crit and gets an underwhelming level out of it. Story of the map really...



Lionel and Raffin double team the last priest, leaving only the boss behind.



Narcissus grabs yet another removement book… I can’t blame the person who threw it into the desert, these things seem to grow on trees...





Raffin grabs a meh level from weakening the boss.



I let Rennie attack the boss despite her not being able to damage him and hope that while flurrying I get a crit on the 12% chance (statistically it should happen in the almost 10 shots you tend to get.)



And for once the RNG seems to agree with me.





And she even gets strength. Truly a blessed turn.















Anyway Narcissus grabs the remaining treasures. The guilty heart teaches the Mug skill to someone.



Time to end the canon run of the map.





: That is true. If we cross the desert, we should be able to break into the palace in one blow. I look forward to see Renshen’s surprised face!

: By the way, Eugen, I don’t see Arkis anywhere.

: Oh, now that you mention it... that fool.. is he skipping work again?



Seems he doesn’t realize himself how much he sucks. Rina (or Liena if you want to stay with the patch) is his lover and Kreiss sister. Keep that mind when you see her because it seems the game intentionally mocks you with family relations







: He’s demanding that you be arrested and brought to the capital. What on earth shall we do!?

: My own fate does not concern me. More importantly, have you heard anything about the situation in Northern Canaan?

: I’ve heard rumors of a Rebel Army, but they’ll get no mercy from me. How dare they manipulate the people’s love for our brother Ares and carry out their deeds in his sons name...

: Are you saying that they are imposters...?

: Absolutely! 14 years ago, our brother’s mansion was ransacked by rebels. When Lady Serene and her handmaiden were killed, Sennet was only two years old. After the mansion burned down, Sennet and the newborn Neyfa were never found. But no one could’ve survived that fire! Our brother continued to search for the children until his death, but even he couldn’t find them. Don’t you think that its a bit too convenient for our nephew to suddenly appear out of nowhere?

: Yes, but our brother ordered Princess Leslie of the Grand Duchy of Sofia to carry out the search. Perhaps she finally found them.

: I-Impossible! Julius, you can’t be serious!

It’s like we’re in a JRPG!

: Right, I was amazed too, at first. However, Theodora says that she paid a visit to Princess Leslie and confirmed it herself. She was convinced that the boy she laid her eyes upon was none other than Sennet.

: But he was only an infant... To think that Ares’ son might be alive... but then, why rebellion? Do they intend to use Sennet to steal away the Kingdom of Canaan?
: Someone else may attempt such a thing, but Leslie is surely not so foolish. At any rate, we’ll have to bring them here in secret to get the full story. Then all will become clear.

: But Julius, what about the Lieve Liberation Army? Renshen of Lazeria keeps insisting that we send him reinforcements.

: Renshen... Ah, that fellow? Let’s have Runan deal with him. It pains me to do this but if we’ve seen fraternizing with Renshen, it would bring disgrace to Canaan...









: Renshen!

: Hey, I don’t remember allowing a mere knight to address me with such familarity. Oh, is that woman your lover? Hehehe... interesting.
You over there, put that girl into the dungeon. I’ll have that man work hard for me. Let’s see him and those guys eat each other alive. Wahahahahaha....



Seems that next time we’ve got a minor complication. But Arkis knows that I will do the best for the army and in the unfortunate event that he stands between me and the boots he will surely understand that I have to take the boots instead of him in the worst case.

Character information

Rebecca

Priest



Character stats

Skills

Summon (starting), Elite (lvl 16), Charisma (lvl 38)

Rebecca is another staff chick for her army. She comes with decent skills in form of summoning and if you grind her out she gets Charisma as well. She got pretty good growths put apart from defensive stats she has no real use for them which is a shame. If you need another healer feel free to use her. Otherwise you can safely skip her.

Narcissus

Thief



Character stats

Skills

Transform (starting), Picklock (starting), Awareness (lvl 17), Gale (lvl 25), Continue (lvl 31),

Narcissus is the last thief you recruit. Although he cannot steal from anyone due to lacking the necessary skill. He has the best stats from the bunch and can probably help out in combat in a pinch due to his transform skill which allows hims to mimic other units gaining some of their stats. If you haven’t trained another thief (and why would you since stealing is quite dangerous on these fragile units) then feel free to deploy him on lock and treasure chest heavy maps.