The next fight was against one of the cabal leaders, who hilariously lacked any self awareness and preached to Revier about how he should join them because they both hate the injustices of the nobility and wanted to right their wrongs, conveniently leaving out the fact that they were of course doing this to gain power on their own. The fight was overall fairly easy, despite him being well armed and equipped - he was poorly guarded, and it didn't take very long to blast him down.
Sadly, he got to escape, and capture Revier's sister while at it! Wiegraf, the leader of the failed bandit rebellion from Chapter 1, abruptly returns here! It turns out he sold himself to the church cabal to get revenge for his dead sister, and is now motivated by little but hate. What a sad turn of events.
Like his companion, he guarded himself poorly, despite being well armed. His holy sword techniques caused some problems, but it wasn't particularly hard to dump damage on him and finish him off. My white mage managed to get the final blow on him in style, blowing him up with a Holy for 200+ damage! Well worth it.
But that wasn't the end of him. He possessed one of the stones the cabal had retrieved for their own ends, and, in his desperation and lust for revenge, formed a pact with it! It turned him into a demon, and he fled after mocking Revier! Then the head priest of the now thoroughly ransacked monastery gave him a book that seemingly could expose the cabal and get them to return both his sister and the stones.
Unfortunately its existence didn't stay secret for very long, as he was accosted by a mysterious wizard who demanded he relinquish the book at Duke Barinten's castle. Hmm. Was this duke in any way part of their plot?
And the cutscenes just kept coming! This one was Delita trying to reassure a pensive Olivia that he wouldn't betray her, and would protect her for the sake of his dead sister. Um, sure thing. Not sure how much we can trust someone who's willing to play literally every side for his own sake, but okay.
The shops had upgraded their gear yet again, and yet again I found myself too short on money. Especially notable was a rod that gave a hefty magic bonus and thus rendered the element boosting rods obsolete, and a rosary that boosted all elements! With these, a wizard could run amok with power, and sure enough, the black mage, who had been hitting hard already, elevated their damage to insanely high levels, hitting regularly for hundreds of damage!
I also discovered what was essentially the ultimate class of the "physical" classes - a samurai who could use katanas to both slice his enemies, and also blow them apart with aoes! This certainly sounded very intriguing, and I would be sure to promote someone into this eventually.
I also did some testing with the classes I had ignored offscreen (Geomancer, Time Mage, Oracle), and found that Geomancer was essentially the end point of the "physical" classes, while Summoner was the end point of the "offensive magic" classes, Mediator the end point of the "defensive magic" classes, and Lancer the end point of the "agile" classes. Certainly a bizarre collection, but hey! I also discovered that, much like the Samurai, there was an ultimate "agile" class that involved multiclassing - nothing less than the Ninja itself! My thief will certainly pick one of these two.
But back to the regular playthrough. Revier's squad discovered a detachment of Goltana's soldiers who were tired of the war and were deserting his army. They turned on him because they recognized him as a branded heretic, and reasoned that by killing him, they could earn a reward and be released from the army in glory, instead of being branded as deserters and forced to live in hiding, or worse. They were...exactly as tough as you'd expect a squad of tired, disheveled people to be - not very! Though it was a bit amusing that this was one of the few enemy formations that could revive its own fallen members, albeit only by liberal application of phoenix downs. Also, for what it's worth, their chemist gunner hit decently hard with their guns...though I began to realize that gun damage was fixed and largely independent of the wielder's stats, so full marks to the guns!
The "astrologer" from before returns, and reveals that he's actually Orlandu's son-in-law! He's on good terms with Revier, and also seeks for an end to the war. Not only that, he's aware of the church's secret cabal plotting something, and has been investigating them, though not with much success. He reassures Revier that he's on his side, before departing with his squad.
My knight also finally acquires all of the equipment breaking skills, making me transition him back into an archer.
Up ahead, we see the mysterious wizard from earlier arguing with his sister. It turns out she, Rafa, is upset that he, Malak, is being blindly loyal to Barinten, their liege, and points out that he intentionally manipulated them into joining his service by burning their village when they were kids and then inducting them into his orphanage. Not only that, but he did something vile to her. Yikes!
Malak refuses to listen to her, going so far as to even slap her for daring to voice dissent against his liege. His troops, a squad of ninjas and summoners, march in...as does Revier's squad, just in time!
This fight was a bit difficult, thanks to the ninjas dealing a lot of damage with both their thrown weapons and their melee hits, and the summoners cooking people with their summons. I eventually figured out a good solution however - wear the fire and ice shields instead of the diamond shields for the elemental protections, and combine the ice shields with the lightning nullifying boots whenever possible. This worked out quite well, and instantly took out a lot of bite out of both the summoners and the ninja's elemental balls. Without their overwhelming offense, their brittleness became a huge liability for them, and they were taken down quite quickly.
Soon after the fight, Rafa thanked Revier for helping her out and praised him for sticking to his morals, regardless of the great risks it brought to him. Malak then hilariously threatens them with a frog messenger informing them both that his sister, Alma, is held in Barinten's castle, and they both should arrive there as soon as possible, else her life will be forfeit. Peachy.
And that's the end of this session! The fights kind of went down in difficulty after the first monastery fight, but the fight against Malak's squad was still decently challenging in a good way. The plot seems to be a bit lost, trying to spin a bunch of conspiracies and shadowy truths without much of a "base" to keep them plausible and thus somewhat interesting, but it hasn't done unravelling everything yet, and I am willing to give it the benefit of doubt, as it hasn't worn out my patience yet. My offscreen experimentation did reveal a lot about the system I did like...and made me resent the nonsensical progression system even more. Ah well, it can't be helped, at least not without modding the game, which I shall only do after completing it.
And that will be all. See you later!
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