Dreaming About Another FE Game, Maybe?

[Vashiane]

I wasn't sure where exactly to put this... so it goes here for now. I think this is the best place for it anyway. Anyway, here goes.

So for some strange reason I keep dreaming about another FE game. And while most of the dream's details are painfully fuzzy, I've managed to compile enough little details and pieces to actually do something about it, so maybe my brain won't harass me about it anymore.

I have no idea what I'm going to do with this roster once I make it, but forget technicalities. Let's do this thing.

So a couple of rules/notes: One, the roster layout I'm using is Awakening's first generation layout. Because Awakening has a couple of doubles that I can replace with other options, quickly. Second, the first generation alone is a pretty decent size for a Fire Emblem game. Third, this is all from a dream I'm having, so wishful thinking and improbability is abound. If so, point it out. Fourth, just because these are coming from my head doesn't mean you can't share some of your opinions and ideas either. You know me, I love opinions.

Alright. List, go! Note that anything with an asterisk can be switched out for another class or removed, and any notes that are italiziced are recent.

Lord: Terra

The princess of the northeastern kingdom of Alcyone, and sole heir to the throne due to her elder brother's disappearance. A warm autumn night eleven years prior brought the kingdom to its lowest point: its kind, just king was captured and brutally slaughtered by a mysterious group of assassins, and the prince kidnapped, never to be seen again. Only through the queen's calm and compose did the kingdom manage to surpass its tragedy and prosper, or at least, for the time being. Her original suspicsions of corruption within Alcyian nobility prove to be truer and truer with each passing day, and she feels her mother is directly involved. Armed with this, Terra gathered a group of rebels disapproving of her mother's tyrannical rule and plans with them to overthrow the Queen and rightfully take the throne for herself.

Except for one catch: she doesn't want it.

Ever since the prince's disappearance, rumors have spread like wildfire through the community: of sightings, of claims that he was actually alive. While the king's execution was publicly displayed, therefore ensuring his death, the crown princes Jordanes was never seen again, leaving his fate a mystery. If Terra wants to overthrow her queen and still be able to live her life the way she wants, the only solution is find Jordanes and have HIM take the throne in her place.

... Or a decoy... whichever comes first.

Boost: Morning (Hit +10, Avoid +10, +1 Movement) during morning maps.

Wind Mage: Windsor (... that's a terrible pun I swear.)

Actually, I'm not sure what role this guy plays. Yes, guy. Since I'm seeing these dreams through HIS point of view, I can't tell you much about him, only that he's dressed similarly to a Wind Mage (and carries what appears to be a Elwind tome, so no doubts that he's a Wind Mage) and that he apparently has a sword on his person for no reason other than appearances, because I haven't seen him use it, or even ATTEMPT to use it. At this point, I'm starting to think he can't. All I know is that the lord character most definitely trusts him... a LOT. Like, "throwing important state decisions at him" trusts him. Oh, and he's not a noble, because he vehemently denied having to right to make these decisions to her and she just kind of ignored him. Well.

Taking this from the profile I made, he's an orphan left in the care of a wizarding school specializing in dark magic. Lovely, except for the fact that Windsor can't wield dark magic - it doesn't take to him. The second the other students caught onto this, they immediately turned him into their communal guinea pig, since he was the only one that couldn't really retaliate. One particular venomous attack left a curse on him that he can't get rid of, and has been slowly and painfully killing him for almost a year. The curse's time is running out, and therefore, so is his, so he decides to run away and find a dark mage who can lift the curse before he dies. Terra does this for him, by claiming he's her long-lost brother Jordanes. It turns out this claim isn't true, Jordanes is missing (still think he's dead), and she wants him to disguise himself as the crown prince while they overthrown her mother. This also, if he keeps the charade, suddenly makes HIM the next in line for the throne. Terra, what the hell. She promises that once the throne is his, she'll take him to get the curse removed, but considering how slow they're going I'm seriously worried he might not make it.

Night boost.

Jeigan/Oifey: Chantal

Jeigan/Oifey is once again mounted, but this time she's not a Great Knight - she's a Bow Knight. Thank God, my dreams managed to do away with the Awakening female bow knight outfit - I hated that. Instead it looks like a cross between Astrid's outfit and Noire's, with the top resembling Noire's Archer outfit and the bottom taking after Astrid. And it's all different shades of gold and white. And so far, she's the only one with a name - Chantal. Fitting, as it means "stone" and from what I've seen of her personality, she doesn't react to anything. Well... almost anything. The one person she reacts to in a non-stoic fashion is Narcisse.

It turns out she's Terra's bodyguard and one of the queen's knights. She has a couple of strange, seriously out-of-place habits, like randomly sliding onto the floor whenever she realizes something. And you'd expect Terra's bodyguard to... jump in front of her to protect her, right? No. She'll run up to her, slid in BEHIND HER, then grab her arms and move her out of the way. That doesn't look like you're protecting her at ALL.

Afternoon boost (+8 Hit/Avoid)

Priest/Cleric: Narcisse

This guy down here. From what I've seen so far, we have a noble with a wistful dream to be a hero, but his lack of fighting prowess and restrained lifestyle kept him from learning anything but healing magic. I only know this because this guy dragged our tactician/wind mage aside to tell him this. Despite that general feeling of uselessness, he's probably the cheeriest member of our motley crew. He has the strangest relationship with Chantal; he seems to rely on her, but brushes off when she helps him and she seems reluctant to assist him but does it anyway despite his attitude towards her. I sense a support conversation in the future for these two. Anyway, his robes are primarily white, which goes perfectly with that strange lavender hair he has. If there's a children/inheritence system, his kids are GETTING that hair.

Chantal actually seems to annoy him, considering the way they talk to each other. There's something very personal hidden in here, because he gets so worked up if he disagrees with her on the littlest things. I don't know what he's trying to prove to her or anyone else, but I swear he's going to blow a gasket one day. Be careful, will you?

Morning boost.

Red Cavalier

Archer: Laurel

Fighter: Demeter

Green Cavalier

Fire Mage: Amaranth

Knight: Lachlan

Pegasus Knight: Calanthe

Myrmidon

Thunder Mage

Troubadour: Somnifer

Thief: Nonery

Something's wrong with this guy. No, legitimately, wrong. The very few moments he's been on-screen he's been an absolutely jerk to our lancer lord (I need her name so badly, why dreams why?). I don't get it. It comes off as like he's personally offended by something she's done, which needs looking into. There is a juicy backstory in there SOMEWHERE and I want it. So far, he's the first and only brunette of the group, with his hair color being a shade lighter than Frederick's and the only one who's eyes I've actually been able to see. They're a very dark brown. And I don't think this guy knows what a smile is, either, because he's done nothing but scowl ever since he appeared. Ironically, our lord is in the room the same time he is. That might be why.

I'm thinking it's not women he has a problem with. It's NOBLE women he can't stand, because he has no problem with Amaranth, who isn't a noble, but he's prickly with Laurel and definitely hates Terra. Now I really wonder why. He also doesn't seem to stay consistently, just sort of flutters in and out of the plot at his leisure. Maybe can't stand being around Terra for too long, I have no idea what's wrong with him. Going to have to make myself think of why.

Night boost.

Pegasus Knight: Iris

Mercenary: Olivier

Manakete: Grima

Jeigan/Oifey*

Dark Mage

Dancer

Wyvern Rider

Light Mage: Lorelei

Pegasus Knight: Garnet

Comment, add, theorize away, folks. :)

Edited September 28, 2013 by Vashiane

[Melonhead]

..someone ought to make a hack out of this.

sounds cool, hopefully you imagine more characters or something. Maybe a plotline, that would be interesting.

[Vashiane]

Working on it!

So a thirty-minute dream got me some information, more importantly, names.

• The first name is more of a nickname, but it's something: our thief character seems to be fond of calling our lancer lord princess "Terry". She also seems to hate this, considering the face she makes whenever she hears it. Lolz, that face. Which I could draw. Now we've got some name possibilities for her, which is far better than nothing.
• Our thief, by the way, is named Nonery. ... Yes, Nonery. I'm wondering what's wrong with my brain here, but considering the clasp on his cloak is actually in the shape of an upside-down nine, I guess it fits. Of course, I don't remember seeing this earlier, so I supposed it snuck in once my brain came up with the name.
• Another thing: Nonery doesn't seem to just hate Terry... it also extends over to another new noble character who showed up during this particular scene. Everyone, meet...
• Laurel, our obligatory archer. What what I've seen of her, she's not nearly as cocky as some of the other archers we've had, but she's definitely proud of one thing: her paintings. Which apparently she loaned one to Terry for a gala and it got ruined, so she was kind of sour about that. But besides that, she seemed like a very pleasant girl, so that's a plus. Which means I'm bound to get another jackass sometime soon.
• The final name I got was for our priest, and it's about as fitting as Nonery, if not worse. Narcisse. If anyone looks and acts less like a narcissist, it's this guy. Unless... I was referring to the flower itself with his hair color. Are narcissus flowers purple? I'll go check.
• As to some semblance of a plot, there seems to be some sort of resistance against the royal family. Ironically, the leader of the revolt is Terry, who IS a member of the royal family. Huh. That's interesting. And we've also got a seemingly dead brother and some big, life-changing even that occured 11 years ago.

I'm tempted to force myself to take a nap and see if I can't get more information. I'll come back after breakfast and update the main page with the new info,

[Book Bro]

Sounds cool. Would play. This lance lord girl seems interesting. The tactician Mage guy sounds like Soren :P

[Lord of Gabriel Knight]

Can the pink-haired priest be cute? Pleeeeaaassseeeee

Edited June 26, 2013 by GabrielKnight

[Vashiane]

Sounds cool. Would play. This lance lord girl seems interesting. The tactician Mage guy sounds like Soren :P

It does... ._. I actually like Soren too, so I'm going to need to my brain to be original for once.

Can the pink-haired priest be cute? Pleeeeaaassseeeee

LOL. :) He's pretty adorbs, so don't worry about that.

Nothing new to post as of today, dreaming means I need more than 2 hours of sleep, but I've got my hopes up for tonight. Benadyrl, if you fail me, I will NEVER forgive you.

[tacticianjenro]

Cool! It sounds like an anime!

[Vashiane]

New information, finally. Sorry for the serious delay, and I still need to update the first post like I promised to. I'll admit to being distracted by MMOs. But this time I have an interesting thing to mention. I can apparently see the gameplay as well. This is really interesting, as I'm dreaming about myself playing this. It's awkward hearing myself talk about battle strategies... I kind of suck. XD

First, the chapter I played appears to be pretty early in the game, as everyone isn't that high-levered at the moment. ('Cept for Narcisse, who's about level 8 right now. Makes sense, considering how I staff abuse.) The objective is Capture and Return (huh...) and the map's more of a rectangular shape instead of square. This particular map is outside - and at nighttime. We've got a river on the left side and what seems to be a house at the top, where the group spawns. Also, THANK GOD FOR THE PREPARATIONS MENU I LEARNED STUFF.

I actually figured out where all this is coming from. There's a thread in this forum somewhere where a few people crated a character for the "Lord" archetype. There, I made this guy named Windsor, who turns out is our "Soren". So, THIS is where all of this is coming from, stemming off of that profile I made. I'll officially post it here after I write all this down.

But as to the new stuff I learned:

• First off, the magic is definitely seperated out again - meaning you can't wield just anything anymore. Evidenced by Windsor being a Wind mage and a brand-new character as a Fire mage. Said new character is named Amaranth. She doesn't say much during this chapter, but I did learn something: Nonery's dislike for women doesn't extend to Amaranth. Either she's an exception or maybe he just doesn't like the two of them. I have no idea.
• Second, Terry's name is now officially Terra.
• Third, a couple of the characters seem to have a strange boost/hinderance in this chapter. It's a +10 boost to Avoid and Hit and +1 movement that just comes from absolutely nowhere. Nonery and Windsor have this boost. The opposite of this is -10 to Avoid and Hit and -1 movement, naturally, which Terra and Narcisse have. Chantal, Laurel and Amaranth seem to be the ones exempt for this. Like I said, really freaking odd.
• Anyway, as to the plot: Terra and co. seem to be breaking into someone's house. What the hell? Apparently whatever they were looking for isn't even there, and to make things even better the homeowner's granddaughter has caught them. Of course, before she can rain her furious justice, the royal guard comes... looking for the girl who's currently cornering them. She panics, and proceeds to run towards the house and the guard gives chase. They not only are going after the girl, but them as well, as they haven't noticed Terra. Terra explains to Windsor that the royal guard is quite powerful, and that it would be better to avoid fighting them. Therefore, the objective here is to talk to the girl and then to the captain to the guard.
• Pretty simply done, especially since said girl has a tome that helps deal with the cavalry. And while we're at it... I think she's worth mentioning.
• Everyone, meet Lorelei the light mage. Yes, light magic is back. She's a funny one, this girl. She seems faily harmless and innocent at first glance, but something is definitely not right. She seemed a bit... off. Definitely seemed far too serene at the fact that she's going to taken into custody. Well, this is going to be interesting.

That's all so far. Got to update the first post and figure out what the heck is with this boosting mechanic. It's so random.

[Anouleth]

Cool! It sounds like an anime!

That's not a good thing.

[pendragone]

Sounds pretty cool.

[Topaz Light]

I am eagerly awaiting future information on this story; it sounds really neat! If I could help somehow with a potential hack that makes this into an actual game I'd do so gladly (and then play it).

Haha... "Nonery" is certainly an interesting name, but it's not actually all that bad. If this is ever made into a hack or something, I hope you keep the names as they are.

[SmallPox]

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chantal_Goya

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantal_(fromage)

[Vashiane]

Thank God for afternoon naps and the comments you guys. Very much obliqued! And I'll go see if I can find an English version of those links, SmallPox... sadly, I can't read French.

Only two new characters this time and a bit more information on Amaranth and Narcisse, but I'm very happy with my brain right about now. Because my brain's gone and done two things that it turns out are extremely interesting.

• First, is that apparently there hasn't been a playable Fire Mage in the entire series. Nice. I'm sure there's plenty of hacks that have beaten me to the punch, but unless you lock Miriel into fire-only tomes in Awakening (which I do) and this somehow magically becomes the next game, Amaranth would be the first. Doubt that's going to happen, but...
• Second, I HAVE A MALE PEGASUS KNIGHT. YES!
• Third, I finally figured out the boosting mechanic. I had to force it on myself, but my mind pieced it together. In their rosters, there's a strange throwaway comment about what time of day they best function. Like Nonery's for example, which mentions that he "works only underneath the dark shrouds of night" or Terra, whose "the first awake in the morning". Seeing that some of the maps occur at different times of day, that means depending on what time of day they function best at - which seems to be split between morning, afternoon and night - they get a small boost or hindrance. Well, the early birds and the night owls do. The afternooners get a smaller boost in the afternoon maps, but no hindrance in the morning and night maps.

Now onto the new characters:

• I'm so excited for this one - everyone, meet Calanthe. Calanthe is my MALE pegasus knight, and when comparing him to his pegasus partner, the one stat that really stands out is his defense. He's got a stellar amount of defense considering his class, so it seems like he's going to be my Lightning Bruiser. YES. His strength's pretty bad though. So as of right now, he's just a fast moving Stone Wall. Fine by me. But enough about gameplay - let's move on the very funny thing about his personality. He acts more like a lord character than the actual lord. He reminds me a lot of idealistic!Marth. He's seriously naive though... and he actually got through all of his battle by merely knocking out his opponents. The first time he actually kills someone he freaks. And I mean freaks. He has to be restrained to calm down, and even then during that battle he'd still choke up and wouldn't HIT the opponent.

Oh, by the way. I seem to have status effects. Calanthe was gripped by Fear the entire battle.

• His partner in pegasus knight riding is the lovely Iris, with a lower strength and defense than Calanthe, but FAR higher magic and skill. She also joins a level higher than him, probably meaning she's more experienced. But she doesn't hit that hard either, not with a lance anyway, so now I'm wondering if I'm getting another, hard-hitting pegasus knight. Because if I am... TRIANGLE ATTACK.

ACK. I can't finish this in one sitting, I have something important I have to do.

Going to take a nap, and then I'll bring more info.

[thetiger39]

Oh a male pegasus knight? What about a female fighter/barbarian character? Can she be cute and have high STR and garbage RES? Someone should make a fangame/hack out of this.

Edited July 3, 2013 by thetiger39

[Vashiane]

Oh a male pegasus knight? What about a female fighter/barbarian character? Can she be cute and have high STR and garbage RES? Someone should make a fangame/hack out of this.

Ha, that would be nice wouldn't it? I'll see what I can do - I don't have complete control over what my head comes up with.

I'm sorry about having to leave and not updating for several days, but every dream I had dealt with alligators ripping my limbs off. Finally managed to tell said alligators to go fuck themselves and finish what I was originally saying before we had to sporadically go on vacation. And what happened to the formatting on the first post...? Agh. Lemme try and fix that, I forgot to put the new information in the spoiler tag. Also added which time of boost each character has.

But enough complaining. Let's have at it! Also, I told the bullets to go screw themselves, because I can actually write down some of the lines and conversations now if I record it fast enough.

I DO have another pegasus knight, but I haven't met her yet. Ironically, considering the way Iris and Calanthe talk about her, they seem a bit terrified. Well, more Calanthe than Iris, but even she seems a bit flustered. Which means... TRIANGLE ATTACK. YES. ALL MY YES.

There isn't a legitimate Pair-Up system in this game (which is weird, I actually love the pair-up system). Rather, the person adjacent to them is added into the battle, similar to Awakening, with the chance to either dual attack or dual guard. The Dual Guard system is very different too, instead of merely blocking any incoming damage, the guarding actually TAKES some damage by doing this. But no, the characters can't pair into each other and essentially become one unit, they're still separate. The real kicker to this is that... the enemy can do it too, as evidenced by Calanthe's CRITICAL being deflected. Dream!Me was not a happy camper.

I also apparently took a sneak peek at the support log before going into battle this time around, which showed me some pretty handy things. First off, marriage, baby. I saw S supports. It's still pretty early in the game where I was, so no one actually had that yet, but...

Terra, it seems, can marry every guy in the support log... except for ONE. Lachlan. Odd as hell name, but at least this one makes a bit of sense: I was looking a bunch of Scottish names yesterday, and that particular one struck a chord with me, so having it stay is fine by me. But it's odd really: she can marry every other guy we've met so far, including Windsor (the guy who's pretending to be her BROTHER) but not him. They CAN support those, but just to A. Huh. Maybe he's related to her as well.

Windsor is the same as Terra, can marry every girl except for ONE. This one girl is actually Iris. Now I'm starting to wonder what's going on here, as they're got to be a decent reason as to WHY. And I'm starting to think this is because they are actually related to each other, because both Iris and Windsor have black hair - and they're the only ones so far to. Chantal and Lorelei are blondes, while Calanthe is more of a strawberry blond. Nonery's is brown, Terra's is blue, Amaranth's is auburn (think Ricken/Gregor) and Narcisse has that odd lavender shade. I've also see his bromance pairings: he can support with Narcisse, Nonery, and... GRIMA. EXPLAIN THIS SHIT BRAIN. NOW.

But anyway. More about Iris. Iris is the skilled/magic pegasus knight to Calanthe's defensive powerhouse self. She's also a fairly serious girl in sharp contrast to Terra and Amaranth, and also, she puts Soren's snarkiness to shame - and manages to do it with the most innocent, blase tone of voice. Take this exchange for example, when Terra mentions moving their Resistance headquarters from out of the castle.

• Terra: I'd rather not have the Royal Guard breathing down my neck every hour of the day, to be honest. [My mother]'s already suspicious of me, like I'm going to risk catching more of her attention.
• Iris: No, I'm sorry. I don't think I agree with that statement.
• Terra: You don't?
• Iris: I don't... because it implies you've actually be doing a decent job with the cover up.

And this one a bit later, when Terra gets wind that bandits are threatening the town:

• Iris: I don't understand... where's the guard when you need them?
• Terra: Do I look like I'm responsible for the guard, Iris?
• Iris: If you were, that would explain a lot.

Ouch, Iris. That's just cold. But I don't think it's because she doesn't like Terra, I think she's just naturally that critical. Despite that, she's such a softie around Windsor and Calanthe it's adorable. I think she has a serious crush on Cal, she's just so protective of him I wonder.

So this next chapter is about the Resistance, for the most part. We learn more about Terra's plan for Windsor and that they're officially announcing the "prince's" return in two days. Windsor is a nervous wreck about this, as he's just waiting to get found out and Terra's trying to keep him calm about it. Chantal offers encouragement by threatening to shoot anyone who dares try to make a disturbance in the eye. Laurel makes her first significant appearance since her debut by announcing that bandits are trying to break past the city walls, and they all head out to confront them.

Except this is where things get dicey. First off, said bandits had a hostage named Olivier (no, not Oliver. Olivier, which is the French version of the name. Note the extra "i"). Considering that Olivier is listed as a Mercenary, I think we officially have our mercenary. Excellent. Second, the leader is incessant on having this guy's head, unless Terra gives herself up. The reason isn't FULLY explained, but... it doesn't really need to be. I already know what this guy wants.

Oh, wait, no, he just wants her skull.

Turns out he COLLECTS the skulls of nobles and hasn't been out hunting for a while, so he wanted something ambitious. And turns out, this guy is a dark mage. Considering that Windsor insists to not kill him, I know what he wants and I don't blame him, as whenever we went into cutscene mode, Windsor's vision started randomly blurring. I'm really thinking he's not going to live. But from what I've seen of this curse, it just makes him dizzy. I'm still seriously worried.

Anyway, he wants her skull. But before he can attempt to retrieve it, Laurel decides to take Chantal's position and shoot him in the eye. Or, well, I THINK she shot him in the eye. Either way, he's very, very dead. This ticks Olivier off to no end, because it turns out that this quack is his FATHER, who is also the ambassador of the neighboring kingdom of Betelgeuse. YES, it's named Betelgeuse. It's clear I like my astronomy. Which means not only has Laurel single-handedly destroyed two countries' relations, we've also informed Betelgeuse that next time they really should background check who they hire for public office.

Battle commence. Terra can recruit Olivier, however, he is still VERY pissed. Shown by the fact that for the entire battle he's gripped by the "Wrath" status, which reduces his hit chance by quick a bit but increases his chances of criticaling. It's basically a more extreme version of the Wrath skill from Awakening.

And there's status staves now, so you can actually cast status effects on enemy players. Sweet. I haven't seen a removal staff yet though, and so far I've just had to deal with it.

And as a final note, here'e something I wasn't expecting at all... while I was trying to Recsue Terra over to recuit Olivier, guess what happened? I MISSED. NARCISSE. MISSED. How do you even do that?! Fortunately it worked the second time but, COME ON.

That was a LOT of typing. Sorry if you have to slug through all of this. Now to eat and power-nap so I can figure out why the hell GRIMA is in my game.

[Rainbow Skittles]

staves missing sounds like thracia 776.

this seems like an awesome game, somebody needs to make an rom hack of it

[Verdant Shade]

Staves missing? Thracia seems the culprit. When was the last time you played it, Vashiane?

Also, your dreams on Fire Emblem are far, far more interesting than mine. Over here, they generally involve putting FE2 or FE8 monsters into FE13. And watching the "Oh noes!" reaction from my healers when they realize that FE13 doesn't have anything to wake up the whole army from Fomortiis's nightmare stave.

So. . . light magic is back. But is the magic Triangle back, absent, or is it like Genealogy where Dark>Anima<Light, where Dark and Light are neutral to each other and advantageous against anima of all kinds, where, in turn, Anima has the WTF triangle in effect?

It seems we have no Dragons yet. Actually, I think those crocodiles might have been your dragons. Grima is now a crocodile?

[Book Bro]

Your dreams are officially cooler than mine

You need to sell this to IS :P

[CT075]

better than rey's ninian dreams 10/10

[Vashiane]

Actually, I've never played Thracia. Which is extremely odd. I'm thinking I stumbled across a post or a thread about that somewhere and my subconscious sort-of tucked that information away. I guess my subconscious memory is better than my conscious one. :)

And if I knew how to hack anything, I'd love to. I have RPGMaker VX Ace, but its internal engine is more akin to Final Fantasy games, and the one script I found to change into something more like Fire Emblem didn't really suit my tastes. And I'm not a scripter in the slightest. I'm better at eventing and map-making.

I haven't really seen any sort of Light Magic/Dark Magic action because I haven't recruited (i.e. thought of) a Dark Mage yet and my Light Mage is M.I.A. so at the moment I have no idea. I haven't seen Lorelei in a while and I'm starting to wonder what happened to her. Maybe I shouldn't have made her my light mage then...?

That's a tempting idea, I wonder if they'd actually look at it...

And I'm sure that Rey's dreams have a bit more Olivia than Ninian nowadays... Or Annie.

If he reads this I'm probably going to get bricked in the head.

Alright! Let's launch right into today's update, which is basically me proving that I suffer for my art indeed.

So this sequence occurs right after the last one - Olivier is recruited, the ambassador of Betelgeuse is dead and Terra still has her skull. It's the day that the prince's return is officially announced, and of course I'm excepting some serious stuff to go down.

Now, the queen actually doesn't know that her son has been found - they've never ran into each other during his stay at the castle. The ceremony is not just presenting "Jordanes" to the kingdom, they're also presenting him to his mother, making this the ultimate test of deception. Hopefully, Terra thinks, the queen won't pay TOO much attention to her son to notice any subtle differences. It's only until now that Terra realizes a major problem.

Windsor's a mage. Jordanes is about as magical as a toothpick... and before he disappeared, he was very keen on learning the ways of the sword.

HOW do you forget something that important, stupid? Gods. I kind of want to choke her. Fortunately, Nonery offers to choke her out for her stupidity, because not only does Windsor have absolutely no expertise in wielding a sword, he also has no expertise in Thunder magic. Iris and Amaranth offer to teach him (although as a Pegasus Knight, Iris only wields lances and Amaranth is a FIRE mage) so he can at least wield a Levin Sword. Narcisse offers to go retrieve one for him, and he comes back with the magical equivalent of Chrom and Lucina's Falchion.

Infinite uses, baby. YES.

There's a catch though - one, the amount of damage it does relies on Windsor's magic stat and what rank he's at in Thunder magic. Since he's at rank E and his magic stat is only about 13 right now, it's not amazing, but... holy cow, that weapon is going to get OP so fast. Yeesh. Must fix.

He also gets a mandatory class change for this, into his very own unique class. It's interesting, because in this class he can wield Thunder and Wind Magic... and swords. Of course, his strength stat is 1, so using swords is about as effective as... well, nothing, so I wouldn't give him a regular sword. But his Levin Sword is a unique E-rank sword only HE can use, and it actually looks very similar to a normal sword, not like the sharp, spiky one in Awakening. Hmm. Either way, it's fairly cool.

So the announcement happens and Terra, decked out in this absolutely beautiful dress, re-introduces the queen to her son. This is the first time we ever really get to see the queen herself, so I'm fairly excited to report things to you.

First, her appearance reminds me eerily of Windsor and Awakening's Tharja, which makes sense considering that I actually based Windsor's appearance off of her, so I can see where Jordanes gets it from. I have no idea about her name though, I heard it, it's just gone. BUT I've had a pretty consistent nature/flower theme going, so I'll check Behindthename.com to figure out what it was. TO THE INTERNET. She also has a serious case of Rapunzel Hair, and with her decked out in that pink-and-red dress reminds me so painfully of Snow White I'm waiting for poison apples to fall from the sky.

If I knew how to scan, I'd attempt to draw the dress. Note: My drawings suck and shouldn't be taken seriously.

Anyway, despite the fact that this is a ceremony she seems very, very dour about this and regards Windsor with a cold, detached sort of stare. Like she doesn't believe it and doesn't want to. Windsor is shuddering at this point - his vision's shaking - but she eventually comes forward and gives him a hug. As an orphan who probably hasn't been hugged in a good long while, watching as his vision grew watery and him sinking into her arms was just d'aww worthy.

Terra had retreated to the deck to quietly sniffle into Chantal's shoulders. I don't blame her within the slightest, that was so adorable.

But just a few moments after than very touching scene, Windsor suddenly starts throwing around every excuse in the book so he can go rest, and I finally learn what Windsor's curse does to him. Let me describe it to you:

• Say someone filled your body with water. Like any sort of empty space inside you was filled to the brim with nothing but water.
• Then say that person stuck you in a freezer. A VERY cold freezer, and all the water inside of you froze.
• Then say that person took you out of the freezer, and began to break all the ice inside of you with a hammer.

NOT. PLEASANT. And lucid dreaming gave me the ability to feel all of this to a muted degree. And what I did feel was pretty painful so it must have been absolutely awful for him. Not only that, but no one knows about this yet besides Terra. He just sort of crawled into his bed (actually I don't think that was his room) and passed out. Poor guy. Please, please, PLEASE let him live. LIVE.

Why do I have a feeling this is going to get tragic very, very quickly.

Oh, and sometime between this chapter and last I unlocked Terra and Nonery's C support. MUST WATCH.

[CT075]

idk about what rey dreams about now although annie sounds like a good bet but you haven't heard him tell his stories on skype

maybe the reactions are the reason he stopped

[Vashiane]

True, I haven't, so I'd have no idea. It's wrong on me to just assume things about people, I've never had an amazing track record.

So in today's news, the queen almost killed Terra and Lorelei is a manipulative bitch.

If you recall last update, Laurel sniped a very important member of Betelgeusian society in the eye, which turns out they're not happy about this and demand some sort of payment for his murder. Normally, they would handle this sort of situation privately, but considering what was done the Betelgeusian council wants something a bit more... public.

Of course, this sort of public payment will ignite even more tension between the two countries/districts/I have no idea how the map looks yet/continents, so the queen decides to make it a private affair, by blackmailing one of the council members and informing him that if he doesn't make this a private affair, she'll have his daughter killed.

Said daughter is Lorelei, who's apparently been in custody this entire time for stealing important government documents. Huh.

Needless to say, the queen gets what the queen wants.

Before I launch into the very hectic negotiation, there's a few crucial details I learned that I simply HAVE to go over.

First, the queen's name is Laima, making her and Nonery the only two to escape the nature/flower theme all of the other names have. Laima is the name for the Lithuanian goddess of fate and luck. But, if you so happen to know a few mythical creatures, then perhaps you - like I originally did - misread the name as Lamia. A lamia is a Greek monster, cursed by Hera to become a daemon with a insatiable hunger for dead children.

Um... brain? Are you trying to tell me something here?

Second, Terra's kingdom is named Alcyone. Yes, more astronomy. :\

Third, remember I mentioned that Terra and Nonery got to their C support? I got to see it~

So, my earlier suspicions were right: it IS just noble women Nonery has a problem with, but Terra seems to get under his skin more so than Laurel does because of her flaky, irresponsible nature - Laurel's far more mature. Terra tries to explain the reason why she's like this, but he doesn't want to hear it - he knows what she's like and feels it's never going to change. Terra's growing frustration with him mounts to a point where she screams at him for expecting so much of her, and that maybe she's shirking her responsibilities as princess and heir to the throne because she doesn't want it. Nonery tells her to calm down, that he doesn't like being held to such high standards either, but feels she's so desperate to get out of her role as royalty she's literally throwing a stranger into a prince's outfit and forcing HIM to be next in line for the throne. She's become so desperate she's ignoring OTHER peoples' wants and need to fulfill her own.

... Wow. I am going to write this entire conversation out. I'll make myself dream about again because that's deep.

I'm shipping the two of them so hard it's not funny.

Third, I still know nothing about Grima... except for this: in order to progress from one point of the game to the next, you're taken to a screen that displays each chapter in a book-format. The current chapter is called "Lobelias" and is on the left-hand side, meaning I can also see the name of the upcoming chapter. The name is "Heaven and Earth", and if I recall, Grima is an Earth dragon, an opposite force of all the divine dragons in Awakening. Meaning... yes, the Earth dragon vs. Divine dragon debate is back.

I'm not enjoying that either.

Anyway, that covers it for extra information, now to the REAL point of this update.

Laima almost getting her daughter killed.

So whenever the council member shows up to discuss what to do about the ambassador Laurel sniped in the eye, the queen decides to invite both Windsor and Terra to the meeting as well. Practice, she says, for when they become rulers themselves. (Terra is secretly laughing at this, I'm sure.) Anyway, they meet in the throne room and like any concerned father the first thing the councilman asks about is his daughter, Lorelei, our creepily serene light mage from back when Terra decided it was a good idea to break into someone's house.

The queen orders her to be brought out. She is, and she seems perfectly fine. Still way too happy for someone who's been locked in a dungeon for x amount of days. Then, before the negotiation can begin proper, the queen calmly states for the guard (who happens to be Chantal today) to bring an executioner.

Well.

Now apparently whenever Laima talked to the councilman about this meeting, she promised that, and I quote because the wording's important, "that she will not kill his daughter". Specifically that she herself wouldn't kill her - after all, she IS still a criminal considering what she stole were government documents about an assassination attempt eleven years ago. She said nothing about having someone else kill her, so when the executioner arrives with a sword (and immediately goes over to hold down the councilman, who's finally realized what's going on), Laima takes the sword and hands it off to the person on her right.

Terra.

In other words, she's just told Terra to go kill one of her childhood friends. Right here. In front of her father.

The fuck is wrong with you, woman?!

Terra throws every excuse she can think of in the incredibly short time-span of ten seconds while her mother holds the sword out. Laima already grows weary of her daughter's stammering and makes her take it, forcing her to wrap her fingers around it. She gets up, moving over towards the spot where Lorelei is kneeling, throwing Windsor the more pitifully desperate expressions just begging for him to stop her, but when he moves forward, Laima motions for Chantal to hold him back.

Lorelei decides it's a perfect time to randomly tip herself over and curl up in a ball on Terra's feet.

Terra eventually shoves her back into an upright position, and asks Lorelei if she wants to say anything. Lorelei decides to respond with this:

• Lorelei: I have nothing to say. Our lives are just pawns in the game of fate, and if I must be sacrificed for a greater good, then so be it. Didn't I tell you that my life was always in your hand if needed be? I did, didn't I, a long time ago. Well, our time has come. Your time to take your place, and mine to ascend to a higher plane.

STOP IT LORELEI, THAT'S DEPRESSING.

But as Terra stutters and sobs and hesitates, trying not to completely lose it, suddenly her breathing because a bit... off. I know how a person breathes when they cry, it sounds funny to begin with it. But this is... strange. It's like she's choking. Not crying-choking, legitimately, choking.

She suddenly falls onto her knees, gasping for air, the sword clattering to the floor.

And Lorelei, as calm as a freaking cucumber in a Caeser salad, turns towards the queen and tells her that she recognizes the... you know what? No, I'll write out what she says. I remember this.

• Lorelei: Oh, I know this... I've seen it before... in my studies. There's a poison made from a flower called Lobelia, the symptoms are just the same. Lobelia means malevolence... did you know what? It makes sense... the poison works so fast and violently, that if you don't provide the antidote within a few minutes of the initial infection... poof! You're oh-so-very dead.
• Lorelei: I'm a paranoid girl though... I have it. The antidote. And I can give it to her too. But... what's the point? I'm going to die today. I have no reason... to do anything... for the woman who won't listen to reason. There might be a way, maybe a way to save her.
• Lorelei: Just remove the charges! It's so simple, and she lives. And I know what you really want... you want those papers back. But how will you ever find them if I'm dead? You won't. You can't. I'd like to see you try!
• Lorelei: But if you let me live, I could return them to you... and I could save the princess. You want that, don't you? Why wouldn't you? ... Oh, and think quickly your Highness! Your daughter's dying!

All said in that calm, happy-go-lucky tone of hers. All with that same blissfully innocent smile on her face.

I knew she wasn't right. Called it. Crazy bitch.

But nope - not done yet. Because the queen initially doesn't agree to it. That's right - she'd actually sacrifice her daughter to this poison (and by the way, she's barely even responsive anymore) just to enforce her twisted version of justice. Windsor literally gets down on a knee and begs her to reconsider it, and it's only after Windsor reassuring her that yes, he'll convince Lorelei to return the papers and make sure they're returned that she even agrees to it, although with the most digusting display of stubborn, childish reluctance I've ever seen in a queen.

Throwing down your specter and storming out of the throne room is very dignified, Laima.

And the best part? IT ENDS THERE. I don't even know if Terra's okay, but her main character plot armor should keep her alive until end-game, so I think we're good.

Edited July 14, 2013 by Vashiane

[Rainbow Skittles]

holy crap vashi you have the best dreams ever :)

[pendragone]

This is turning out to be really interesting!

[Vashiane]

Thank you very much. I love sharing it with you all, and getting all the information down in one place, of course.

I apologize for the delay, but my original version of this dream had so many holes in it when I went to hurriedly jot everything down that I had to re-dream it, then fill in the holes left by the re-dream.

So I had to dream this particular section a good three times over, and it wasn't exactly... consistent either.

I'm sorry I sound so whiny about this, I just... I'm very interested in this. This isn't the first time my head has come up with a storyline for my dreams (Mafia!Hetalia has to be my favorite so far, even if it WAS a fanservicey self-insert) but this is definitely one of the BETTER ones.

So to start out this update officially, there's a couple things I want to get out of the way before I mention the totality of the next chapter, "Heaven and Earth", which ends up being a hell of a lot more sinister than I thought it would be.

First, some random game features I saw:

You can actually replay each chapter in three different ways. The first way is called "Novelization", and this replays the chapter WITH all of the cutscenes/story included. The second way is called "Memorization". This mode allows you to replay the battle for a particular chapter (and some chapters, like "Heaven and Earth" actually have more than one battle per chapter) but with a few key differences.

The biggest change are the enemies: instead of being, you know, solid human beings, you now have what appears to be either holograms or ghosts - judging from their blue, translucent appearances. They're described as being a "recollection of the opponents fought" which is leaning towards them being ghosts. The second change is that they don't move towards the player anymore - they stand in the same spot and only attack you if you attack them. It sounds rather simple... almost too easy...

The third change is that the enemies ALL now have the Vantage ability.

The third option is "Finalization", which takes "Memorization" mode up to eleven. They gain some skills, and the entire map seems to be insta-aggroed to attack you. They WILL come for you.

I can already see this being a serious pain.

Next, I HAVE SEEN THE MAP.

The only thing is... in order to show you guys the map, I'm going to have either draw it (you'll thank me if I don't), or use RPGMaker VX Ace to create it. That's the better of the two options, even though the computer that said software is on is kind of... in bad shape. I'll attempt it though.

Third, they're a minor character that I haven't introduced that you need to know for this segment: the queen's head adviser Ariel, who was originally a Betelgeusian nobleman's son who fell head-over-heels in love with the queen when they were children. He seems to have for the most part, gotten over this since he has a wife and children, but the fact that he moved his entire family just for this position makes me wonder. Hmm.

Well, don't get too attached to him.

Because he apparently has left to go visit some of his more distant relatives in Betelgeuse, and instead of seeing him return like we had originally thought, we instead get a messenger from the outpost on the border, informing her highness that just moments before he crossed the border into Betelgeuse, Ariel was suddenly and abruptly killed...

... By an arrow, straight into his eye.

Doesn't take a genius to figure out who is responsible for THIS.

In order to hopefully calm things down before a war starts, Terra offers to go over and act as an ambassador of sorts, and hopefully reach some sort of agreement before anyone else gets Skyrimmed in the eye.

And we're off to Betelgeuse, the beautiful wooded land of opportunity and grudges.

The chapter starts with Terra and co. entering a quaint little forest-side town that apparently being visited by a theater troupe.

But before Windsor can fully get into the magic show currently on stage, someone shoves him out of the way and onto the ground. The person is shrouded in a black hooded cloak and just seems to be mindlessly knocking people around. Windsor brushes himself off and doesn't say anything about it, but Narcisse has noticed. So he decides to storm over to the person and tell them what for, that he can't just run people over without apologizing.

The person's response? Punching Narcisse in the throat.

So after, you know, socking Narcisse in the throat, this person turns away, and quietly gets up onto the stage.

Of course, you're really not supposed to do this, so the magician gets a bit ticked that someone's just randomly interrupting his show.

The cloaked figure doesn't do anything, just disappears behind the stage and strolls right into the caravan.

Regardless of the oddity, the magician continues with the show, ends it on a wonderful finale and then disappears in a poof of smoke. Terra is absolutely wowed, of course, and the group leaves the plaza to head towards the inn for the night.

Nothing new here, all in fact seems well.

Until Windsor wants to go examine the stores in town for supplies before he goes to sleep and takes Iris and Calanthe with him.

The second he steps outside, he sees that in the ten minutes they abandoned the plaza, hell has walked the earth and left it burning.

I hate the way this was presented. Windsor's head is turned back towards the two behind him, laughing at something one of them said (a lot of the sound is muted at this point - all you can really make out is the sound of a breeze whistling by) when he steps on something liquid. All you hear is that splash - it's freaking deafening compared to anything else. Slowly, the camera pans down towards what he stepped on and he lifts his foot, and all you see is a pool of blood, and just blood dripping down his boots into the puddle again with these sickeningly loud drips. And then it pans away from him - and I actually am NOT looking in his point of view anymore, holy cow - and traces around this fucking stream of red, over the ocean of blood in the plaza and all the dead bodies strewn around, floating in it, and the burning trees and houses and - fuck that's a lot of blood.

I should mention I'm trying to get over a fear of blood... this isn't helping.

And to put the blood-red cherry on the red velvet cake here, just before Windsor's vision refocuses on the plaza, all you see is a giant, shining dark green dragon flying past.

That, ladies and gentlemen is Grima.

Grima has a similar build to Nowi/Nah/Tiki's manakete forms, except for being a much darker, off-shade of green. Like a dark, grayish-green. And his left wing is shredded. How he's still flying, I don't understand. Anyway, Grima drops down and transforms again into his humanoid form, and I'm reminded of something to the effect of Dark Link, save with a darker, more tanned skintone. Think... Yarne's.

I'm wondering about the scars on his abdomen though... hmm...

Either way, he moves forward to talk to Windsor about something, and is instantly almost gutted by Iris. He sidesteps it so fast that he HAS to have Lancebreaker and severs her lance straight in half. He goes to attack her, and Calanthe decides to be a sweetheart and jump out in front of her. Grima grabs him by the throat and tosses him onto the ground, which prompts Iris to headbutt Grima and stagger him enough to Calanthe to recover and swing him towards the ground, but Grima regains his balance before that can happen and flips him onto his back, knocking the wind out of him.

So Windsor decides he's had enough and decides to knock the wind out of Grima... by walking up to him and hitting him in the face with the tome itself.

Windsor, I love you.

Then the actual battle commences - except it's just Windsor, Iris and Calanthe against Grima, who is the boss of this map.

This sounds really easy - except for a few problems.

There isn't a preparations menu, so whatever items were on those three characters - if at all - are the ones you have to use. If Iris had a lance equipped, it's GONE, mimicking the one that was broken during the battle. And guess who had just equipped a recently gotten Steel Lance onto Iris?

And last but not least, dismounting is back - because Iris and Calanthe are both missing their mounts, even though it's an outdoor map. Technically, it makes sense: their pegasi are back at the inn, but still. Fortunately I have a spare lance in Calanthe's inventory for Iris, so she gets equipped.

Of course, THIS is when I wake up again.

Four days of piecing together about 30 minutes of one repeat dream.

But I will mention this one thing I noticed from the cutscene before the battle...

... I think Tiki's back.