Revier hurries towards the border fortress, Bethla, but his journey is interrupted by one of the cabal leaders, who unleashes a poison bomb on his party! He laughs, and boasts about how he's unleashed this poison on Dycedarg's faction's army, meaning they too will be put out of commission!
Thankfully, despite his boasting, this was generic poison that wore itself out. Despite this, the fight was quite hard. The enemy was well entrenched, but that wasn't really a problem by itself. You see, this leader was a speed devil, often getting their turns in very inopportune times. Not only that, he was equipped with a magical ice gun, and had no qualms about shooting the party with it! I could've cheesed this fight by making everyone wear ice shields, but I decided to be a sport and bear the pain. Eventually the team got past him, albeit after a prolonged and tense battle that involved many a revive!
The upside of this was that the team earned lots of xp and skillpoints, letting Revier effectively complete his Jumping command and getting his samurai very close to buying a good katana aoe. The chemist also unlocked Auto Potion, which effectively cancelled many weak attacks thrown his way and even dented many strong attacks, effectively cutting their damage by half most of the time!
Meanwhile, the church set their plan in motion. They framed Orlandu as a conspirator and had him arrested, while getting Delita closer to Goltana in preparation for their strike.
At the fortress itself, Revier got a choice of approach, being able to assault it either from its front gate in the north, or the back gate in the south. I chose the northern approach and was able to defeat its forces fairly easily, despite it being composed of decently well equipped units. Perhaps I had already started outpacing the enemy, at least, as far as its regular units were concerned.
I took a peek at the southern approach out of curiosity, and it wasn't really much harder, but the presence of a thief and a ninja near the start did make it more annoying. At the end of this fight, the game cut to Dycedarg's faction's army, who were in terrible shape indeed, passing out in mass to the swiftly spreading poison.
Dycedarg and his ruler, Larg, were both victims of the poison themselves. However, Dycedarg, upon meeting Larg, wastes no time stabbing him to death! It turns out the church had reached out to him and made him their assassin for his faction. Truly, his skullduggery knew no bounds!
Inside the fortress' walls, Revier discovered something very interesting - a dam controlling the flow of the river! With it open, he could flood the battlefield and stop the two armies from assembling! The dam's security seemed intimidating at first, but the knights on the dam's levers stayed put, and the rest of the force wasn't anything special, despite the fortifications aiding them.
The mission was also unique in that killing everyone did not end it - Revier had to specifically clear the levers' tiles by killing their guards, waiting for their bodies to decompose into either crystals or chests, and then stepping on them. This meant that the mission dragged on despite all real resistance being neutralized quite early, which was a little blah, but whatever.
Once the levers were pulled, the river's flow created a mighty splash, flooding out the land below. The rest of the church's scheme is revealed here, as Revier rescues Orlandu from the fortress with their help, Delita assassinates Goltana and one of the church's members sacrifices himself by pretending to be Orlandu and willingly getting killed, so as to complete the frame job and also plant false news of his death. It turns out the church wasn't a fan of the cabal either, and they were intentionally letting Revier and Orlandu loose, hoping they'd find and extinguish the cabal's members for them.
With that disaster averted, Revier now headed for Limberry, hoping to defeat Elmdor and rescue his sister. But I must spare some words for Orlandu. So, remember when the holy knight, Agrias, kicked all kinds of ass with her swordskills? Well, he's a uber version of that. He starts with top tier equipment, including a freaking Excalibur, he has high stats, and, most important of all, he has an outrageous list of swordskills, combining BOTH the holy and dark knights' moves alongside some equipment breaking moves! Disgusting!
And with that, this session ends. The church's plan seems increasingly unhinged and ad hoc, taking many a drastic and risky step that succeed only because the plot wouldn't work otherwise. I'm also a little annoyed that, at the end of it all, the church ends up using Revier without clearing his name or acknowledging its slip ups. I mean, that's kind of the point of the story, but it still feels dirty. I'm also worried that the game may run out of meaningful progression or challenges soon, going by my experience with the fortress. Well, let's be optimistic, the game is still enjoyable and it will be a while before it tires me out of itself.
That's all for now. See you later!
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