Part 37: Chapter 26 – Freedom for Lazeria

Chapter 26 – Freedom for Lazeria



Welcome back everyone. After some down time on my part it is finally time to tackle the hardest chapter yet (especially if you want to get everything the chapter has to offer) and try to retake Lazeria.





The Chapter is called: “The Black Scion“





: The castle has been taken over and the palace is surrounded!



Oh the irony…

: Well, so be it. No need to worry. I have a good move ready.

: That would be...?

: Rendering the enemy forces powerless. Well you’ll understand when you see it. Their worried faces will be a sight to behold.

: Yes. By the way Lord Renshien, who is this creepy man besides you?

: That’s a swordsman called Golgoda. I hired him to protect me. Between his Master Sword and my Likuhd... as long as we have those two blades there is nothing to be afraid of. I will have the last laugh it seems... Wahahaha!!





: You just need to listen to what I say. If oyu do not, this girl will....



: Stop that!! I got it... I’ll do as you say, so don’T put Rina into danger!!

: Wahahaha... they fit you just right. With that figure, even they won’t understand it’s you. You’re going to take eaxh other down at the very least!





: What shall we do?







There are a few Dark Soldiers on the map, one of them being Arkis. The only clue you have as to whic one he might be, is that he has different stats than the other Dark Soldiers. He won’t even have his own stats for some reasons or his skills just different stats then the other Dark Soldiers. There isn't even dialogue if you accidently kill him or anything and no change in AI routine. He will mercilessly hunt you down ( and kill himself). Still other than accidently killing Arkis they tend to be the least of your problems.



These assholes however gladly steal everything they can get a hold on. They might be restricted to non star items (e.g. Schramm, Mainstar, the special tomes etc.) but will gladly take Meteor tomes, Promotion items and other nice stuff. Worst of all apart from a steal proc (which we don’t have) the stuff will be lost forever. Lovely really...



Their mage buddy is largely harmless. He can deal some damage but tends to be on the lower scale of your problems.



Arkis is the Dark Soldier which I have the cursor on. Take note of the room south of him. It makes this chapter a living hell. In it are three archers, two of them equipped with Arbalast bows which have 4 range and the last one got a Gatling Bow e.g. a double brave weapon attacking 4 times in succession. They will continue to hit your team because the close quarters you fight in won’t let you evade them. There is also another mage inside the room with an AoE tome which does quite a lot of damage and he also gladly sacrifices Arkis if he is amidst you. Bastard
To round off things we also got our physic asshole of the map in there to prevent you from hunting him down. In short this room is not fun especially because they kill Narcissus in two hits meaning it becomes quite a pain to get him to open the door.



Then there ist his guy. He is single handily responsible for about a dozen resets on my part because he will make a beeline for the boots and loot the chest leading to you losing them forever. It wouldn’t be as bad if Arkis didn’t have the tendency to stand in your way and you having no path around him.



The boss is not worth mentioning. He goes down like a chump if you know his gimmick. More on that later.



His hired muscle however… Jesus look at him. He comes with decent stats a Brave Weapon and is a swordsmaster to boot, meaning he gladly crits your face off. Zachariah and Narron are the only guys that would survive a clash with him without a luck dodge.



Our damsel in distress has an ironic luck stat given the situation she is in and is otherwise an interesting recruit wouldn’t it be for her abyssmal strength growth of 10% on a physical unit…



Lastly here are the “hostages“



We slowly advance on our first turn making sure we only got targets with starweapons for the Thief Sword users to go after.







Their attack efforts were less then fortunate…





Meanwhile Rennie flurries one of the Soldiers to death.



And we advance further. This map is a strange paradox in that you need to rush in order to make it through the bottle neck in time and stop the boots from being stolen but rushing too hard will easily get one or more of your units be killed by the opposition in the hidden room.



Like most maps, there are some reinfocements spawning in the form of Dark Soldiers.





Rennie murders another thief and gets a level with strength for it





Lionel uses his movement to great extend, attacks the mage and more importantly makes it past the first bottle neck on the way towards the boots.





Rennie and Lionel get greeted by a hidden archer and Arkis respectively. Luckily Lionel didn’t crit this time and murdered Arkis immediately.



More reinforcements spawn.







Our forces start murdering most of the opposition swift and quickly with Lionel arriving at the second bottle neck.



Narcissus pilfers the first chest and adds a Knight Proof to our vault.



The Physic asshole is on my side for once and heals Arkis, meaning he won’t commit suicide on Rishel.



Lionel gets really badly hurt on the enemies turn but he survives and even kills the thief with a crit to prevent his weapons from being taken.



See he just barely didn't commit suicide Thank you Physic Asshole.





More reinforcements spawn and I position my bait in form of an unarmed Zachariah for Arkis to tire his arms on.





Rebecca brings Lionel back up and gets a great level out of it although she only really needs magic and defense.





And the first goal of the map is achieved with Lionel murdering the damn bastard. I have no idea how I would have done it, if Lionel didn’t have his stellar movement gains or enough defense to survive the barrage in the bottle neck. The only possibility I saw outside of murdering Arkis would have been hoping for a lucky crit from Rishel and his siege tome.



Rennie takes Narrons weapons in order to create the Anti-Arkis cage.



Arkis meanwhile gets healed again.











The enemies fail their attacks and spawn even more reinforcements to spite me…



Narcissus manages to open the other chest in the south for another Super Proof.









The mages that I’ve left behind because they wouldn’t survive a barrage from the archers begin their job. Murdering the reinforcements while they have to walk through their own bottle neck.









Lionel and Arkis get healed back to life and the mage uses his AoE tome to create havoc in my conga line



While Vega heals himself back with his healing fruit you can see my Anti-Arkis Cage in the bottom right corner. This should prevent him from doing stupid stuff.









More reinforcements die due to magical Hellfire. Still Meriah has quite an aversion to getting points in Magic.



Most of the team finally made it through the bottle neck and with the boots saved we can now slow down a bit and do things in a more controlled way.



The Physic asshole keeps on healing the troops that aren’t killed on the spot. However they decide to throw it away almost instantly...









Samson took a lot of punishment just from covering for the squishier members of the party and heals himself back up.











More people die and my mages are still shown up by a Pegasus Rider in terms of a magic score.





In order to have Narcissus survive going past the archers, the only way I found, is transforming him into Narron or Zachariah. He won’t get the exact stats but it still boots his Hp and defense score enough to survive the ordeal...





Rebecca continues to burn through her Far Healing Staff (I burned almost an entire staff on this chapter) and finally procs her 40% magic growth.



The remnants of the reinforcements make their way towards our vanguard.





Samson takes the Master Axe he got from his wife for a ride with brutal results.







The rest have rather similiar experiences…



Zachariah gets a meh level from acting as the punching back for Arkis.



Most of the reinforcements are already in an early grave.







Samson kills the last Swordfighter with a Thief Sword and hands it over to Lionel who heads off on another errant.





Vega kills one of the last Dark Soldiers and arrives at level 20 with another point in strength.







Thus he decides to promote on the next turn and looks mighty respectable right now.









Lionel went back towards the Arkis cage, whacks Arkis with the Thief Sword and takes his weapon and thus frees up Narron and Zachariah to do other stuff as Arkis just became harmless. If you have a blessed Rishel you could theoretically Murder the one that drops the sword with his Meteor tome from across the wall and immediately disarm Arkis. Still you need to one shot the holder of the sword as the Physic asshole as well as the holder himself with his Healing items will immediately heal up and move out of range.





Narcissus made it past both bottle necks in Zachariahs form and finally grabs the boots.



Even a helpless Arkis still gets healed by the Physic Asshole







Rennie hits level twenty as well and follows Vega’s example and promotes. She looks pretty good as well.





Rebecca heals up Narcissus and gains another level. As far as one stat level ups go this could have been a lot worse.



We finally reached the door leading to the assholes that annoyed me the entire chapter. This ain’t going to be pretty for them











Hey guys…



Oh.. you’re next my friend.. you’re next.









Oh well… I can give him that one given that he is close to almost every cap apart from skill.





As pennance for leaving the thread hanging I sentenced myself to trial by devil spear and in contrary to what the translation says stabbed myself. (In an earlier failed recording I did it after the boots were pilfered and managed to crit myself to death...)



After we vented our frustration on the assholes and their secret room, it is finally time to save Rina.



: Please take me where Lord Arkis is!



Rina’s stats are kind of bad even if you figure in that she gets mali for being dismounted especially at this time in the game. Still I hand her the Salia Codex to bring her strength growth up to 20% and intend to give her a chance at least. Well she got Elite, so why not...



After a couple of turns I managed to hunt the fleeing Arkis down and start to have a talk…





: Yes, but I was saved! So, Lord Arkis, you don’t need to fight anymore! I’m ok now so...

: I see... Wearing this stuffy thing was a pain in the arse! Shit... That bastard Renshien! He better remember this because I’m gonna make him pay!

: Yes, I will fight too. Let’S go together Lord Arkis!

: Hey, Rina. Aren’t you a bit too friendly? With me I mean?

: Eh?

: Well.. it’s fine.



And so we have his horrible self back in our team with his fate being to be forever benched...





Lionel stabs the helpless mage after having stolen his weapon and gets a meh level out of it.







Since Narron reached Level 30 I decide to Super Proof him up for ten more levels of potential growth since he promoted at level 10.



Most of our dudes get in place for the final showdown with Renshien, but there is still the cage with the hostages…





It turns out to be a “trap“









Look Renshien.. I don’t want to be mean but a strategy should imply a way to win or at least take a advantage from the situation. Let me show you that sending these dudes after me is not a strategy by killing them with the level 1 unit I got in this chapter and then spending all the cash from their gold bags on something long after you died.



Anyway enjoy the level ups I farmed for her while murdering this crack team of Renshien.























I have to admit she got some nice levels here and there. Also Rennie getting strength is a bonus as well.



Anyway time for the main event of the evening.



Just as a reminder this is the dude that needs to be killed asap after running into the throne room as he will kill lesser fighters in split seconds. And help you god if he procs Astra or Sol.







Rennie goes in for a flurry but only manages to get off two hits leaving her dangerously open to retaliation in the next turn.



Luckily I have Rishel close by for a coinflip chance in salvaging this potentially fatal situation.



And he succeeds



The mages really dislike me in this game when it comes to getting levels



This leaves only the boss left. As a rule of thumb don’t engage him in melee unless you are sure to kill him with the first attack. Anyway, Rishel softens him up.



: But I still have this sword, Likuhd! The games are over now bow down before me!



Eat fire, Renshien….



And Vega gets the honor of defeating him.





: Who cares about that? More importantly, don’t you have something to tell me?

: Wha-What is this about!? I-I don’t have anything to say to you!!

: Heh, you’ve gotten pale. So you’re the one who framed me.

This would only make sense if Julia attacked him since she was framed as far as I know. Vega should be calling him out for deceiving him. But that’s only a minor nitpick...

: Wa-Wait!! I’ve got money! If you become my ally, you’ll have whatever you want!!

: What I want, Renshien, is your head.



And Vega cuts him down.



Can’t argue with this level either.











If either Vega or Julia kill Renshien you will get his sword. It has bad hit stats which a swordmaster can usually compensate for and decent might equal to a Silver Sword. What makes it special however is that is has a base crit of 80 meaning Vega will murder everything in his path now with a 100%+ critical hit chance. In addition the weapon is also effective against monster and raises your Magic Defense by 7.



Anyway, time to finish the chapter.





: Two years huh...

: By the way, I forgot about Arkis. His breach of military rule is a serious crime. He must be punished accordingly. Hey, someone bring Arkis here!





: You fled before the enemy and even pointed your sword at your master! You can’t escape the death penalty! Sit down then! Im going to personally strike you down!



: Hmm? And who would you be, miss?

: I’m the sister of the Knight Kreiss, Rina. Lord Arkis breached military rule in order to help me. He is not at fault! IF you cannot change your mind, then please let me be the one to be punished!

: You’re a commendable young girl, but why would you cover for Arkis?

: I am Lord Arkis’ fiancee. I cannot bear to watch my future life partner be put to death.

: He-Hey, Rina..?

: Lord Arkis crimes are my fault. So punish me if you have to punish someone. I will not move from here until theN!

: Eugen, this is enough. You too, Arkis. Don’t take such arbitrary actions anymore. Eugen was worried sick... It was a really wrenching sight, you know...

: Lord Runan, General Eugen, my deepest apologies..

: Hmph, for today I will forgive you but only because of the girl! You have to grow up a little or you won’t last much longer! You might as well get together with the girl and open a small business in Lazeria. I think that would fit you much better!

: Captain, please stop saying such absurd things! Do you not see that she is still just a child?

: Ehm... I shall watch over Lord Arkis. I will surely make him into a great knight , so please forgive him...

: I see... this might be a good plan. The girl seems much more reliable. I will leave Arkis to you then.

: Yes, I shall do my utmost! Let us go Lord Arkis. Everyone is worried about us.

: Tsk, I feel like the old man just pulled a fast one on me.



: I presume you must be exhausted, but the citizens gathered in front of the palace, wishing to hear our lord’s voice. It will be enoguh if you do it from the balcony, so please let them hear you speak.



: Oh my, I forgot something important. Lord Runan, by all means let me give you this.

: This is?

: A Holy Armor, proof of the governor of Lazeria. I took care of it for Lord Glamdr, planning to give it to Lord Runan once he would become a man.

: Lord Father`s?

: Yes. It happened before he left for Norzeria. Lord Glamdr might have foreseen what his fate would have brought him...

: Lord Father....

: Please, Lord Runan, Change into this armor then.







And as such Runan goes through his plot promotion. He still isn’t the strongest in our group but at least we won’t have to fear for his death everytime more than one enemy comes into his vicinity.





: Well everyone is waiting. Let us go to the balcony.



: from the empire’s tyranny. Let us all express our thanks!



*cheering*



: I could not carry on my father’s will. In these two years I made Lazeria’s citizens suffer unbearable pain. On this day, I, following the elder’s advice, became the governor of Lazeria. I want to learn from my father’s example and strive to become a good governor. Yet, the royal palace of Lieve is still under the empire’s control. I, together with the allied army’s knights, hope that I can free the Royal Palace of Lieve and end this tragic conflict as soon as possible.

*cheering*



That however has to wait for a bit as it’s time for Holmes to kick some ass.

Character Information

Rina



Character stats

Cavalier -> Paladin

Skills

Elite (starting), Re-Move (lvl 8), Gale (lvl 18), Continue (lvl 23),

Rina is the last cavalier you get. She is completely underleveled and starts at level 1. Even though she has Elite she will have a hard time surviving most combat at this point of the game and her horrible strength growth kinda ruins her otherwise great growths (including a movement growth). She would have been awesome as a mage but as a cavalier it tends to be a waste to train her when you already got Narron, Sun, Ropharl and other decent mounted units.