So I decided to take direct screenshots this time, and in some ways I like it better and in others it looks worse. Oh well. I don't think many people will care either way. We've recruited Altenna, killed Trabant, but now we basically have 3 random keeps between Serlis and King Trabant's castle (now occupied by Arion since the good King is dead). Not a lot of enemies between here and there either. Means it should be an easy time, right?
So some nameless goon general sits at the next keep, I guess his name is
Kanatz. He's not too imposing. I weaken him with Faval (so awesome) and finish with Delmud (trying to boost this guy, so to speak.) So Faval is a
Sniper now. He's basically taking on where Jamka and Brigid left off. Useful units, them snipers. Even if they can't reliably counterattack. We're reminded that Hannibal's son is still being held hostage, but over in the next castle with the next boss guy. The dark sect people are still around too. One random keep down, two to go.
Diesel, or something like that, sits in the next keep. However, he's not going to let us get there without a fight, we get to fight
Musar and a bunch of what I assume are Grandbellians working under Alvis/Julius.
Judah, the sect guy in the area, arms his keep area with Ballistae. He also has long range magic, so that's going to be a pain to work around. Anyways, he has to wait since Musar/Diesel are up first. He has, and will drop, a
Tornado spell. I've learned that placing an evasive unit in a keep is a very useful move, and watch as a bunch of people constantly miss Lakche. I even equip her with Thunder so that no matter what, she can attack back. This general "strategy" ends up saving my butt later on, too. I'm easily able to then overwhelm the mounted knights. At this point, I don't think anyone can or will be able to use Tornado..
Got tired of Serlis being behind, so I gave him a Paragon. Hawk is also very useful at the moment; he often attacks multiple times and is also fairly evasive. I want to get Arthur to catch up though as well, so I pull into my scum-bag-of-tricks and boss abuse Diesel's keep regen to allow Arthur to top off to 20. I just kept pelting the guy with wind and allowing him to heal up. Was able to get my new healers like Femina and Hawk some exp in the process. I allow Serlis to also get some exp in the same way, and he finishes the guy off. We learn that Corple has run away. Huh. I guess I didn't realize that would happen. I guess I needed to run over here first. Seems a long way away from where we had to fight his dad. Oh well, probably a crap unit. Or maybe he will show up later.
So Serlis is now a
LordKnight and Arthur a
MageKnight. Only a couple of units left to promote. Not counting Tinny. Or Patty. So that leaves Delmud and Leif? Speaking of Patty and Delmud, seems like they've partnered up with Shanan and Lakche, respectively. Interesting selections. Too bad Patty's been useless. I repeat the strategy of having Shanan dodge all of the long range attacks to take out Judah. I also have him kill the Killer Ballista that was outside of the keep. So all that's left are a bunch of weak
normal ballistae. Sounds like free exp to me.
Repeating another strategy I've used, I basically just send Leif and two healers through towards the ballistae. The healers keep whomever in good health (most often each other) while Leif gets the kills, since he needs the training. He ends up 3 exp short :/
SOON. I play around with the Dismount option here, and it sucks. Levin basically tells us (the player) that negotiating with Arion at this point is basically futile. He's got a lot of wyverns at his command, and he doesn't seem to be interested in changing sides.
Arion's got the
Gungnir and some impressive stats. Basically, he's a fast flying tank. He can't attack from range though, and his resistance isn't great. So it seems like I need to hit him with magic...carefully. But, that's not the important part right now. He's sending a flock of dragons to each of three keeps in my possession.
Oops. Well, I've got three evasive swordmasters/heroes! I Return/Warp Shanan, Lakche, and Scabathascar to each of the three keeps. Shanan I don't need to worry about at all with Balmung, no one can hit him. I quickly learn that most all of the wyverns use Javelins and can't really hit the siblings either. Lakche and he brother take a hit from some of the captains leading the squads, but each is able to quickly heal up with Sol/Keep regen. So basically I've got all of the attackers stuck and unable to capture anything,
and I can hit them in the back with my other units. Arthur doesn't have Holesty, but he has Thoron which is kind of neat and a crappy substitute.
I allow Leif a hit to get to level 20, but then I notice that the wyverns here are ignoring Delmud entirely? They'd rather attack the keep guard and miss. Lol AI. So Delmud is able to get a lot of free exp here. Just have to make sure he heals from the counterattacks. Leaf turns into a
MasterKnight (iirc) and wow, he can use almost anything! I give him a Silver Bow and a Fortify, and even that Tornado that I thought no one would be able to use.
Jesus. For some reason though, the wyverns at the last (first?) keep don't ignore Delmud entirely. Close call! Fin and Oifaye have to help out, but I try to still give Delmud most of the exp. And he becomes a
Ranger! I think that's everyone, right? Everyone worth anything, anyways.
Off screen, I shuffle everyone back down toward the end of the map. Pictures of that would be boring. Arion stops deciding to play wait-and-see and now he and his units are all on the move towards Serlis. Gotta watch out! I eventually get to a point with I'm skirting his range and will have to do as much damage as possible once he moves in. I open with Ichival, it normally works
so well, but it only does a moderate amount of damage to Arion. I also notice that he is really evasive and hard to hit. I basically move in almost all of my magic units in to try to hit him,; people like Lana, and maybe surprisingly, Hawk, seem to do the most damage. Lakche tries to get a final blow with Thunder...but misses. People like Shanan and Aless and Serlis use their good weapons to thin out the rest of the wyverns; they are comparative non-factors in the fight here. I end up having to end the turn with Arion alive. I'm willing to lose a weak unit if it comes to that. Really, this is my second time doing the encounter; last time he killed Lakche, which I wasn't having. But...
He starts running away! This isn't the first time I've seen this, but still something unique to this game I think. I'm surprised that he does this before all of the other reds were gone. But whatever! I have to chase him down. Fortify was really helpful in this fight, since it allowed my other casters to be on the offensive which their magic instead of individually healing. I'm able to get people like Lakche and Altenna in range of attacking Arion with range, thanks to some help from Leen. However, Serlis actually manages to get the final blow on Arion with that Elfire Sword of his. But Arion is pulled aside by Julius before he actually perishes. So that's a couple people that Julius has pulled back towards...wherever he comes from. Julia is acting a little more strange though. Something to do with her brother's presence, I'd assume.
Upon seizing that last keep and on the way back to Grandbell, we learn of a small region called
Miletos, which seems to be where the Dark Sect comes from. I'm unsure it's really been mentioned much before, but there it is. While there's at least one or two generic evil bishops around here, we also might be able to finally deal with Manfloy himself, as well as Ishtar's mother named
Hilda. Arion doesn't make an appearance yet, though. There's some other generic guys, but the important bit is that Julius and Ishtar seem to be rounding up villagers (children) to give up to their God, Loputousu. Manfloy also steals Julia away from the Liberation army. Like mother like daughter

. He mentions that she doesn't remember him, which makes some sense since it seems like Julia was a sort of project for him in the first place, which is why he wanted Alvis and Deirdre to have a child in the first place. Or was that for Julius? I don't really know. Either way, Serlis has to stop the offerings and save Julia, and finally deal with this sect before moving on to Alvis and his son. I'm actually not entirely sure which of Alvis, Julius, or Manfloy is pulling the most strings here. I'm assuming at least one of them is going to betray at least one of the others, but which? Maybe Serlis will just have to deal with them all himself.