Screenshot Dakota's War Journal (Semiblind Fire Emblem Fates RP/LP) (Send me your castles!)

Matt-hue · February 29, 2016

Reading this while I'm off sick is a good idea because it's helping me distract myself from the pain. :P

Also, to answer your question, I like the new format.

Alastor15243 · February 29, 2016

Entry 15

Dear War Journal,

Despite the extreme trepidation all women in the castle have developed with regards to intimacy, two relationships continue to blossom!

Yet another awesome new “consolation prize” at the lottery...

And finally I can use my own hot springs without getting kicked out by women too embarrassed to be seen in swimsuits.

And now the armory has been upgraded!

But more importantly, let's look at our new allies:

Ryoma is amazing, with his awesome Raijinto sword that can attack at range and his impressive stats, he's definitely going to be a welcome addition to the army blowing any other swordfighters out of the water.

This Scarlet woman is also fairly impressive, with some awesome stats and a cool but dangerous ability.

Sakura found another of Ryoma's clubs. Awesome!

War Journal, I've stumbled upon a delightful little opportunity! These incredibly weak mages are uselessly barraging an unarmed Kaze and Sakura and doing absolutely no damage to them due to their excellent resistance scores. Which means that I can make this skirmish I'm doing go on for as long as I want and use this as an opportunity to have Azura sing her way to her next skill with the high-level Ryoma!

...I would never have dared attempt this if she started using lyrics, but no matter, she did not, and 48 hours later, Azura is now level 25 and has obtained a fantastic skill! Yes! Fantastic! And wouldn't it be spectacular if we had two more soldiers who had such a skill!?

OH IF ONLY.

Yes, we're finally off to pick up Azura's and my children to join the glorious war effort! It's... awkward, I shall admit, to already have two teenage children I've barely spent any time with. If we're being perfectly honest, War Journal, I barely remember their names. But no matter! I hear they're both promising fighters, and we need them! So let's go!

...Oh hey! So get this, War Journal.

SOMEONE TRIED TO HURT DADDY'S LITTLE GIRL.

What's this? Not much for talking? Well I am! I am Dakota Waterstone Vendelgate of Nohr, that is my daughter, and you are the blood that cakes my nonexistent boots!

UNTETHER HELL ITSELF, COMRADES! LEAVE NONE ALIVE! NO ONE DARES STRIKE KANA FORTISSIMO VENDELGATE OF EAST DAKOTA AND LIVES TO TELL THE TALE!

...This battle will be an absolute slaughter. Good thing too, because we have to make it quick, Kana turned into a dragon in the stress of the encounter and is kinda going crazy. Oh they'll pay for that too, War Journal, I assure you. They'll be dead in a matter of minutes and then we'll find a way to calm her down. Just to be on the safe side, considering the huge amount of money I have, I bought a handful of tonics to boost key stats of my star players.

First, I have Silas get between these red lines but in range of one of the sky knights and all of the samurai. Between his defense and dual guards he'll be able to survive them all and with his new lightning-quick practice katana he'll be able to kill all of them but the swordmaster too.

The lower red line represents the range of these guys, who Kaden will finish with ease...

...While the upper red line represents the range of these diviners, who would do serious harm to Silas if I let them get close. Kaze, on the other hand, laughs at their magical attacks.

To the east, Ryoma has some fun with these archers...

While finally, I group everyone else to intercept the remaining approaching sky knights and falcon knights that Silas and Kaden won't kill.

Sadly Silas's accuracy with the practice katana against seasoned dodgers is less than I would've hoped for, and one survives. No matter, thanks to Takumi, Reina, Azura's dancing, Silas, a mighty blow from my Gigirant, and Kaden's glorious ability to slaughter any mammal, all the advancing threats are felled.

Step sixteen on my path to greatness.

Oh, and while I've stopped showing everyone's level ups all the time, I thought I'd share this due to my concerns over Reina's last level up. This is... mediocre. She still has a valuable niche for the moment, and may very well keep it due to how hard Hinoka and Subaki are to train lately, but she's not exactly promising with these growths.

Now for the last two groups.

MY DAUGHTER!

IS!

OFF!

LIMITS!

Dakota: Azura! Do your thing, but from a distance! She might have inherited my taste in your music!

Azura: You are the ocean's gray waves, destined to seek, life beyond the shore just out of reach! Yet the waters ever change...

Kana: RAAAAAWWWWRRRRR!

Dakota: That's my girl.

Azura: Flowing like time. The path is yours to climb!

Kana: RAAAAAWWWRRNNNNNNNNGGGGHHHHuhhhhhhhh...

Dakota: Kana! Darling! Are you alright!?

Kana: Papa?

Dakota: Yes, it's me, sweetie! Are you okay? Are you still hurt?

Kana: Oh Papa, I just had the most wonderful dream! I dreamt I was a huge dragon, ripping off limbs, goring people with my horns and eating them as they still clung to life!

Dakota: That wasn't a dream, darling! That was real! You really turned into a dragon!

Kana: I did!? Truly Papa!? I can do that!?

Azura: Wait... goring people? She didn't... was anybody watching her while we went to fight the enemy!? Did she actually-

Dakota: Hushhhhhh! You're ruining the moment! Yes you can, sweetheart, and guess what? So can your old man!

Kana: You can!? Show me please, Papa!

Dakota: I can't, I'm in the wrong class. But the point is, now that you can change into a dragon, guess what that means you're old enough to do!?

Kana: Oh Papa! Can I truly join you on the glorious field of battle against the vile enemies of the mighty land of East Dakota!?

Dakota: Kana, it would be an honor to have you! Just promise to always follow my orders and only kill the people I tell you to!

Kana: I promise, Papa, I promise!

And so it was a glorious day in the land of East Dakota, and we had a glorious fish feast to celebrate the occasion! Oh this is the happiest day of my life, War Journal! It's going to be sunshine and roses from here on out, I tell you!

Alastor15243 · March 1, 2016

Entry 16

Dear War Journal,

It's been a wonderful couple of days. Kana has been absolutely delightful, I am truly a proud parent. It warms my heart to see her storming around the castle grounds in dragon form going “rawr rawr!” and jumping at people. Hahahaha! Classic.

Silas found this thing. I suppose I could conceivably put it to use training really weak units, or maybe if I slack off training Orochi and I really want somebody captured, but...

Okay that's just racist, dragon veins. We demihumans who transform with stones don't all look alike!

Upgraded the lottery, got a somewhat better prize. Upgraded the lapis spring too, and got some more lapis. Speaking of ores...

I forged the two “Ryoma's Club”s together to make a super Ryoma's Club since we have so few axe/club users.

Kana, bless her, asked me if she could use the legendary Yato since I'm not using it in my current class. I could never say no to her. Unfortunately, the sword itself apparently can. My Yato had the sheer gall to zap my daughter with electricity when she tried holding it! I'm not sure if this is a protest against nepotism and that simply having my blood isn't enough for it to accept her, or if this is just another case of legendary weapons hating vaginas.

In a cruel twist of irony, I am now the one resorting to making my daughter a homemade present. But I will not do this by halves. Don't worry sweetie, you'll get your own awesome custom weapon! Just give Mama and Papa a second to win some more pearls!

Oh you will, sweetheart, I promise!

I'm prepared to make it stronger once I get my hands on some more pearls and/or get somebody on forge duty who can make katanas for less ore, I've already bought the katanas necessary for it. But here's the prototype. Sadly, I was a tad overambitious and went for a steel katana as the base (the strongest katana we have access to that doesn't have crippling long-term side-effects from usage), and it seems she's not quite ready to wield it. She will be soon though, so I don't feel the need to give her an arms scroll to speed it up.

This is probably a good time to go over Kana's stats. She's awesome because of course she is, she's my daughter. Not quite as durable as her old man, she might have inherited a bit of her mother's frailty, but she also clearly inherited her mother's everything else too. Those are very respectable stats for a level 14 warrior! Plus she's got her mother's voice of peace skill, which nerfs the attack of every enemy in 2 spaces by 2, essentially giving her +2 defense against everything not attacking from three spaces or further, and also applying it to nearby allies too! And once I pick up our son, I'll have it on three! I wonder... will it stack? Time for a little family outing to experiment!

...No, it does not stack. Kana takes the same damage when Azura is in range of the enemy that she takes when Azura is out of it, so only one effect works at a time. Shame.

YOU BRING GLORIOUS HONOR TO THE VENDELGATE-!

...Small sample size, Dakota, small sample size...

...Better...

...I love you anyway, honey.

...Okay, we can do this...

...It's alright, sweetie. Maybe some other day.

On the bright side, I found this cool staff, that should be really useful, and...

Kana can finally wield the mighty Kanato!

Also, I remembered Ore Swap is a thing...

...So now it's obtained its mighty +2 form! There you go sweetie!

Kana: Is it a legendary weapon like yours, Papa?

Dakota: Oh yes it is, sweetie, and just like the Yato, nobody else can touch it! Except in this case, when people try to touch it, they don't get zapped, Papa just has them executed!

Kana: WOW! THANK YOU, PAPA! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!

Oh hey, Kana! Look! I erected a statue in your honor!

Kana: Papa... that doesn't look like me...

Dakota: I know it doesn't, honey, I know it doesn't...

Oh, and the rod shop's been upgraded!

...Anyway, all concerns with those level-ups aside, Kana's still quite good. That rocky start was unfortunate, but her bases more than compensated. It'll take quite a few more unlucky level ups before she's not powerful, and her dragonstone, regen while holding a dragonstone, and voice of peace make her easily my team's best all-around tanking option, especially physically when I support her in dual guard.

Consolation prizes are the same as ever in the upgraded lottery.

I had some bonding time with Kana in the arena, and I unwisely chose to go in front, counting on my superior natural defense when we turned out to be fighting a magical foe, and Kana has better resistance. Thankfully I got a critical.

Found another one of Takumi's shinai, as well as this thing. It's basically a weaker but more accurate and more critical-prone steel club.

Anyway, on to my business for today: settling things with that cryptic tactician.

Robin: You're late.

Dakota: ...Fashionably late.

Robin: It's been two weeks.

Dakota: Well excuse me for needing some planning to come up with a counter to your nightmarishly unfair setup! Seriously, bravo, this is a nasty piece of work.

Dakota: You've got this great knight, and to be perfectly honest, those stats speak for themselves...

Robin: Stats? So you can see them? You have The Sight?

Dakota: I've heard it called Dragonvision, but yes. Anyway, the point is, this strapping young lad. Now on paper I could have somebody tank him, yes, but...

Dakota: There's that skill of his, Luna, which eviscerates defense. Not a high chance of activating, but the point is that it's still there.

Dakota: ...And that staff your shrine maiden has, which cripples health. I could attempt dodgetanking it with Kaden, but I have no idea if staff accuracy follows the same rules as normal accuracy. The point is, neither of these on their own would be enough to kill my Kana if I paired up with her, but...

Robin: ...But if both of them were to land on her at once, she would die.

Dakota: Yes, there's the rub. This setup seems designed to make it always possible that somebody will die no matter what I do unless I come back to this way later. And by that point your assistance would be useless.

Robin: There is a way to emerge victorious without losing anyone valuable. I wonder if you'll find it.

Let's dance, grandmaster.

The obvious key to this is that I'm allowed to bring four soldiers, while that hexing rod of hers only has three shots. So obviously I need to get her to waste all of them, preferably from over here in case this prompts everyone to start charging us.

...It does not, and better yet, the hexing rod missed me. So now I can have it attempt the remaining two charges on my two soldiers who aren't going to see combat.

...That one is successful. One more to go. I set up Azura to take it and prepare to bait the great knight with Kana.

And here we go. I keep us unpaired because even if luna procs, with the tonics I gave her Kana can still survive, and we need both of us, plus a sing mulligan from Azura, available to take this guy down while he's vulnerable from using the exclusively two-range spear next turn because he has an ability that prevents doubling.

...He does not move.

Fuck.

My whole strategy counted on him moving.

...Actually this doesn't change a whole lot. Plan B: stall until he snaps and orders the great knight to move. He will eventually, that's what experience has taught me. The problem is that then Robin will be right up in my business immediately since he'll probably start moving at the same time. But that's where more advanced tactics come into play.

Where Kana is right now is where the great knight will be at maximum range of right after he starts moving. If I face him here rather than his immediate range, then that'll put more distance between him and the slower and further away mercenary, guaranteeing us a period of time to finish the great knight off unmolested.

Now to stall.

…He's still not moving.

FUCK. He is smarter than the average bear. Did I screw myself accepting this challenge!?

...No. No, I've got this. Gigi will save the day. Specifically, her wings. I've guzzled a few more tonics to brace myself for going deeper into the great knight's attack range. Then once he's been provoked, I'm figuring he can't be unprovoked, so he'll keep chasing us. But I can fly over the river. He can't. He has to go the long way around, and when he does, I'll be ready to take him down, and then his friend will be too far behind to threaten us immediately. And I've run the numbers. We can take him and his friend too.

...NO GOOD! He still won't attack me, and if I go in any further I'll be so close that I can't fly over the river to escape a second attack without getting into Robin's attack range. And on the western side, Robin and the great knight's attack ranges perfectly overlap. There has to be some way to do this...

...If this doesn't work... I'm running out of ideas...

Okay, here's my plan... I have to get rid of this healer first. This may finally provoke them, in which case this will probably get easier, but if not, I can still do this.

I forgot about miracle... if this had procced and I missed the followup attack, I would've been screwed. I only brought one charge of rescue. I never would've imagined it would get this complicated.

Thankfully the healer's dead, and Sakura rescued me back across the river. Now to see how Robin responds.

...Nothing. He responds with nothing. Cunning bastard! Well no matter, I have you now!

Here's the plan. Kana equips her kodachi and baits Robin to attack her from across the river with Thoron. Buffed up with Rally Luck and Inspiring Song she should be safe from Robin's just-high-enough-to-be-scary critical rate, and then with the mercenary in back I don't have to worry about draconic curse until after dealing with the great knight. This should work. Oh sweet dusk dragon I really hope this works.

5% crit rate still. Shit. Robin... I swear to all the gods... if you kill my daughter... the ends of the earth will not be far enough away.

They're on the move.

Too Late.

Now all that's left is the great knight. My positioning in the river made him decide to return and try and attack me from his origin spot, but I went back in the hopes that I'll be able to charge him normally, as that will give me the edge. Foolish great knight. Without his leader he doesn't understand why holding his ground like that was such a fantastic strategy. Now just to bait him into using the spear and then take him down.

Check. Mate.

Robin: Bravo, Dakota. I had my doubts about you, but it seems they were unfounded.

Dakota: Oh do tell.

Robin: I constructed this to test your moral code. To construct a situation where nobody would be strong enough to survive. A heartless commander would be tempted to sacrifice a weaker soldier for the sake of the stronger ones. You did not. You passed my test.

Dakota: Ah! Yes, I thought it might have been something like that. I did actually consider doing that.

Robin: Wh-wha...?

Dakota: But I decided it would be tactical suicide. Sure, I could get some patsy to die for the glory of East Dakota, but that would be too expensive. I'm out of challengers for the moment so I'd have to pay for a scout and then pay to recruit them, so much work...

Robin: …

Dakota: Now I could've always used one of those Einherjar to do it too, or just used one of the soldiers I haven't trained at all, both would've been cheaper, but the former would've still cost some money and the latter would've been a PR nightmare, but more importantly, the challenge limited us both to four soldiers, and I only had room for two warriors, a dancer and a healer. Getting rid of any one of those spots would've been tactical suicide and you would've slaughtered me.

Robin: ...So... you cheated the test!?

Dakota: More like your test was stupid. Oh and don't think I forgot our little deal. You're mine now. Come along.

Robin: ...One... more... thing... that white-haired dragon girl with you... what's her name?

Dakota: Kana. She's my daughter.

Kana: Hi Robin! Are we going to kill things together now!? Yay! You're so strong, we'll be able to smash and burn a lot of stuff! This'll be so much fun!

Then the strangest thing happened, War Journal. Robin seemed to get this terrified, thousand-yard stare for a fraction of a second before shaking his head and regaining his composure. I've been mulling over that look on his face for hours and I still don't have the foggiest idea what it meant. Perhaps he'll tell me more someday.

Edited March 1, 2016 by Alastor15243

Alastor15243 · March 1, 2016

Okay, opinion asking time: Should I document the paralogues? This is two consecutive entries that haven't been about the main story and now I have two more lined up due to these child paralogues. What does everyone think?

Omegaprism · March 2, 2016

Hm... They could be potentially entertaining, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't personally more interested in advancing the story. I vote for not documenting the paralogues, but I won't be heartbroken if I'm outvoted.

Clarinets · March 2, 2016

I think you should document the paralogues. The one where you recruited Kana was one of my favorites so far, and I want to see what you'll do with the others.

Alastor15243 · March 2, 2016

Well until Matt-Hue or some new reader breaks the tie, I think I'll delay getting Azura's and Silas's kids for a bit and go back to the main story.

Alastor15243 · March 2, 2016

Actually while I'm at it, I think I'll just do a poll so I can get the opinions of anyone reading this who isn't interested in posting.

At any rate, I don't think there'll be a post today, I've had too much going on, so I'm taking my time with this next update, it'll be tomorrow.

Alastor15243 · March 3, 2016

To buy time for the poll, I tackled a story chapter today!

Entry 17

Dear War Journal,

Oboro found this thing. Not too impressed.

Mediocre silver prize at the lottery, but I'm still going to use it.

Anyway, War Journal, I decided to go on a little expedition to get myself and my little girl prepared for our promotions before we do anything more. Nothing much, shouldn't be too hard.

Step eighteen on my path to greatness.

Excellent, Kana, I knew you could do it! Now for your extra special promotion!

Sweetie, if all it takes is tossing a golden ball in the air, I'm sure you're fine.

...Rather underwhelming for my final level before promotion, but what can you do?

Anyway, time for step twenty on my path to greatness!

Incidentally, I did not get a new Wyvern. This is Gigi, infused with demonic powers! Don't let the glowing red eyes and even-more demonic screech fool you though, she's still a huge sweetie! ...Well... to me, anyway.

Just in time for me to gain access to scrolls and tomes, Silas found this! But that's easily the least interesting thing happening with Silas right now!

Turns out Hana and Silas have been in love for quite some time, but they've been reluctant to go anywhere with their feelings out of concern for the whole time-warp babies thing. But no longer! They can no longer control their unbridled lust for each other, and now we have another child ready to join the army!

Also, incidentally, the store ran out of rescue rods and won't get more until we upgrade it. Maybe. Anyway, only 4 more charges of the panic button left. Also I bought a long-ranged wane festal because it'll probably come in handy at some point.

Upgraded the Silas statue. Honestly it barely seems worth mentioning anymore.

Oh, and the mess hall got an upgrade. I haven't been using that much, probably should.

Between some minor skirmish missions I returned to stock up on tonics to find my beloved daughter behind the rod shop counter.

Dakota: And what might you be doing here, young lady?

Kana: It's my turn to run the rod shop, Papa! I'm a shopkeeper! Chaching! Would you like fries with that? Sold! (pounds fist on table) I'll give you 400 for that piece of junk and not a coin more! And don't give me any sob stories about your crippled pregnant wife, I've got a business to run!

Well, that was just about the most adorable thing I've ever seen. Though it is somewhat worrisome that my daughter is so easily amused by peasant work. I have very lofty plans for her.

Anyway, I think that's enough dilly dallying for now, let's move on with our glorious campaign through Nohr!

...Oh. Yeah. Right after I celebrate my wife's birthday, which apparently the castle itself celebrates by bestowing empowerment and gifts upon the lucky person. Let's see what the castle got her!

She got a very Azura stat surge...

A bit of weapon proficiency that she'll never use...

...And this thing. What...?

...East Dakota. It is a mark of how important you are to the success of this military effort that I have not burned you to the ground for this insult.

Moving on.

Ah, a good old fashioned underground resistance. It's intriguing to be siding with one. For most of my life I imagined crushing these underground pockets of vermin like bugs beneath a rock, but I must say, getting to know Scarlet, they have their own rather adorable peasant charm to them. It helps that she also has a wyvern, and that, more to the point, Gigi now has a new friend! His name is Chernabog, and it's adorable to see those two playing.

Also, allying with the Nohrian resistance now means that my group has access to more wyverns than just Gigi, so now my daughter (and son, once we pick him up) can ride wyverns of their very own! Kana is delighted, but I want her to stay as a “Hoshido Noble” as Ryoma so patronizingly describes it (since when is a noble a higher title than princess?) for a little longer so that we have somebody with access to dragonstones and so she can start exploring the skills of that class.

What to do with the sizable supply of run-of-the-mill mooks we've been given access to that amount to little more than warm bodies is another question. Use them as human shields? A decoy? Bait? The possibilities are simply endless.

...Alas, War Journal, it seems that this is a discussion for another time. We're under attack. Again. We've seized the opportunity to ignore the ambush entirely and rush straight into enemy territory! It's so insanely stupid that they'll never expect it!

That is a lot of cavaliers and paladins, War Journal. We could easily be overwhelmed if they all charged at once or employed any of Robin's tactics. If they don't, however, like literally everyone but Robin up until this point, this should be pretty straightforward.

This space is... conspicuously empty. There's an obvious ambush waiting for us here, War Journal, I'm certain of it, or at least reinforcements of some description.

Here's the formation I ultimately settle with.

Let's go.

With some help from Azura's music. I get myself over to this outlaw with Felicia in tow to boost my newly-needed magic, as well as speed, and thanks to her power, my offense and defense in general. Sadly it's still not enough to kill this bow user so I'm forced to resort to Gigirant to make the kill, delaying my study of magic a little and meaning I can't retaliate against the paladin with a javelin up there.

Kaden takes the east side, ready to deal with these upcoming cavaliers, though due to his merely okay defense and my paranoid refusal to rely on evasion rates, not many of them.

In the event of an all-out blitz, I have Scarlet, Ryoma and Silas/Hana take the west side while Kaze, Takumi and Robin take the east side, with Kana ready to either attack or heal depending on the situation.

Thankfully, of the cavaliers, only the ones I went in range of advanced, and the knight division to the north was the only group to advance unprovoked.

A problem, however: The only way to attack this outlaw is to get in range of both a knight and a paladin, and none of the dispatched units in that area have both high defense and 2-range. Getting in full-on melee range of the outlaw would incur the wrath of all three mounted units. But thankfully, I've calculated that Rinkah's dual guards will defend Kaden from the worst, so he moves in.

By the way, War Journal, I've started training up Hana, as I have reason to believe Hana and Silas's child will be stronger if she has two strong parents instead of one. She's been gaining experience remarkably fast, and she hasn't been a total pain in the ass to train. She's still nowhere near as good as Silas though.

Things go as expected, and I clean up the knights and cavaliers. I need to do this quickly while they can still be baited individually before they all decide to charge at once.

...Immediately after saying this, half of them decide to charge all at once. Thankfully, it's only half, and it's far too late to overwhelm us.

And the cavalry arrives too late.

I double back a bit to deal with the outlaws before dealing with the cavalry.

They fall just like the rest.

...What did I tell you, War Journal? Obvious reinforcement space. Though strangely they don't come from the stairs... they just... kinda... appear. ...Weird. And scary. Can enemies really just do that?

Anyway, Sakura's finally ready for a promotion! I choose Priestess because healing is so commonly needed that I'm not likely to have her attacking except in dire emergencies where her particular attacks will do serious damage other attacks won't. Hence why the best weapon for her is a bow, in case we're overwhelmed by powerful fliers.

Let's see who we have here...

Benny hardly seems tough at all. Very slow. Just gotta keep him away from riders. Should be easy, he doesn't plan on moving.

Charlotte's not much better, just gotta keep her away from women.

And then there's this guy, who can reach just past their range. His weapon of choice is pathetic for him, negating his natural advantages of strength and crit rate, but awesome for me, being an axe-using mageknight with rather weak magical weapons at the moment, and I must get my hands on it immediately!

I bait the rage-possessed fool into a battle he cannot possibly win.

Then he falls to Kaze, who gets some more much-needed experience.

With help from Azura's singing, Hana takes down the two knights with her armorslayer.

Then I have Robin and Takumi take down Benny and Charlotte respectively. Still the indoor enemies remain unprovoked. I then claim the bolt axe from Kaze.

Time for the daddy-daughter tank team to provoke the enemies inside!

Dakota: Ready to switch from healing duty to battle, sweetie?

Kana: Am I ever! We'll redden every brick on the floor, and some on the walls too, Papa!

Ahh, the grand return of the classic draconic bait and slaughter. This time with bottlenecks! As there's no treasure and no allies in danger, and thus no reason whatsoever to rush, I use this splendid opportunity to train up my weaker range fighters. Realizing Takumi is way too strong to need much babying, after this first kill I switch to training the much weaker Kaze and Hana.

Yes you have, Kana, sorry for ever doubting you!

Things go uneventfully smoothly with this plan, and Kaze and Hana both gain several levels. However, it soon becomes time to deal with these guys and their dreaded critical rate. I wish Dragonvision would tell me how much critical resistance my units have so I don't have to keep guessing. I know it has something to do with luck, but I don't know the exact formula. Regardless, I feel the safest route is to ambush the bastards from range.

Simple enough, as it turns out: The outlaw and berserker are provoked as a group, so I can easily make him come to me without actually getting in his range. Had this not been the case, I'd still be able to sneak up on him with my more mobile self. I'll repeat for the other side, deal with the far less dangerous hero and mercenary, and after that, it'll be time to tackle the leader.

Conveniently, Kaze reaches level 20 just after finishing off the mercenary. Let's see what his options are for advancement...

Wait... What the... What's a... Mechanist...?

TREMBLE IN INCOHERENT DESPAIR, ALL FOOLISH ENOUGH TO DEFY THE RIGHTFUL KING AND QUEEN OF NOHR! MY RIGHT HAND NINJA NOW RIDES ATOP A GIANT MECHANICAL LION! ALL PROTESTS, ALL OBJECTIONS, NAY, ALL DISCOURSE HAS JUST BEEN RENDERED INVALID FOREVER!

YES! KNOW THE DEATH OF ALL HOPE, DANIELA! SPEND YOUR LAST PATHETIC BREATHING MOMENTS REALIZING HOW INSIGNIFICANT YOUR LIFE HAS TRULY BEEN IN FACE OF THE GLORIOUS GIANT MECHANICAL LION!

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAAAAHHHAAAAA!

...Whew! So, that was fun. After such a long battle my army needed rest, but rather than rest at the lovely land of East Dakota, everyone for some reason seemed convinced a nearby forest, a disgusting, buggy, outdoor forest, was the safest place to stay. I tried to sleep, but the horrendous sounds of Azura's singing stirred me from my dreams and forced me to track her down to get her to shut the hell up. However, I instead discovered something rather different when I found her. She became enshrouded in the same purple energy that I've seen enveloping those bizarre creatures who have been hounding us periodically and interfering with bringing our children home. She says that this happens whenever she sings that song. When she sings in battle or for fun, she's fine, apparently.

Oh poor dear Azura. She still doesn't get it. When she sings in battle, she does it without lyrics. It seems that our bizarre dimension-hopping friends are offended by her music even more than I am and seek to wrack her with unimaginable pain whenever she dares use it. Now, I approve in principle, but still... that's... kinda my wife they're assaulting, so...

...Right, I suppose I'll have to make them pay. Only I may mock her terrible lyrical skills, do you hear me? And nobody is permitted to hurt her for it!

Alastor15243 · March 4, 2016

Entry 18

Dear War Journal,

Kaze on his glorious Giant Mechanical Lion brought us glory at the arena and got me closer to forging a decent scroll to use. Speaking of forging...

The smithy has been upgraded and can now forge further! But it'll be expensive.

I also upgraded the prison. Orochi has been sorely undertrained, as has Hayato, and I intend to fix that now.

Back from that little adventure, and now Hayato and Sakura, like ZeZu, is nearly ready to blossom into love and, more importantly, copulation. And yet I am torn... I had this really funny feeling in my stomach when I thought about the prospect of two adorable teenage girls getting teen warp pregnant and saddling two teenage girls and a teenage boy with being parents so early in life. It was weird, it felt bad, like I shouldn't do it, but I can't think of any reason why, I mean it makes perfect sense and will make my army even stronger, so why not? I talked to Azura about this and she told me it's something called a... conscience? Weird. I'll sleep on this decision.

Taking steps towards upgrading the Kanato. In hindsight I should've called it that Kanatana, but Kana's too attached to the current name.

My own daughter asked me for an accessory and I discovered to my horror that I ran out of them! Oh dear, that's awful! I'll have one for you next time, sweetie!

Speaking of children, I've decided that today it's time to finally pick up my dear son, Shigure, from Deeprealm daycare! We're on the boat to visit his little island village as we speak.

Shigure seem to take after his mother more than he does me (I was hoping he'd inherit my hair color since Kana inherited Azura's, but alas, they both inherited hers), but that's fine. I look forward to having another dragonborn child to ride into battle beside! And he's a sky knight too! Ooh, I've been neglectful on training my sky knights (mostly because they've been sucking royally), but with one being my own son I'm sure he'll be fantastic! And then I can have him reclass into the grand class of nobility to inherit the great dragonfang and whatever the hell skills we get as a Hoshido Noble! Oh he's going to be a grand addition to the army.

He also has a delightful singing voice, War Journal. Takes right after his mother. Of course, I made sure that's all the musical talent he inherited from her, heheheheheheh... Oh! What's that? Looks like he's flying over to meet us early on his pegasus! I can hear him singing now!

Shigure: You are the gray ocean waves, destined to seek life beyond the shore just out of reach. Yet... still the tides ever change... flowing like time, like the path you must climb.

Azura: …?

Shigure: In whitest light, there's a hand reaching through... and a two edg-ed blade cuts your heart in two! Waking dreams fade away! Embrace the brand new dayyyyyyy!

Azura: Dakota... you didn't... Did you teach Shigure the wrong song while I had my back turned!?

Yes, War Journal, I took a few... “creative liberties” with the lyrics to Azura's song when teaching it to Shigure.

Azura: Dakota, stop talking into that War Journal of yours when I'm talking to you! It's creepy!

Shigure: Sing with me a song of birthrights and love! Light that scatters to the sky above! Dawn breaks through the gloom, white as a bone, lost in thoughts all alone!

Oh dear. Looks like Azura isn't happy.

Azura: I'M THE ONE TALKING TO YOU, DAKOTA, NOT THAT DAMNED BOOK! UGH!

Shigure: Mother! Father! It's so good to see you both!

Dakota: Shigure, my boy! Likewise! Come here!

Azura: Shigure, sweetheart... what was that song you were singing?

Shigure: Father told me it's your song!

Azura: It, uh... not quite... you got some of the lyrics wrong...

Shigure: Oh yes, but Father told me we're not supposed to sing that other version.

Azura: He said what?

Shigure: He told me that if I were to ever sing it, horrible things would happen to me. Terrible abominable horrors not yet conceived by man or beast would run rampant and assault all of my senses and most of my orifices!

Azura: Sweetheart, your father is an uptight liar. Watch.

Dakota: Azura, NO!

Azura: You are the ocean's gray waves, destined to seek life beyond the shore just out of reach. Yet the waters ever change-

We're under attack, War Journal.

It's those invisible freaks again. Fighters and outlaws to the north, dark mages and outlaws to the south. I can't see any way for my ground units to get to them, and since they're all ground units, I can't see how they're going to get to me. I'm guessing this means something's going to happen once the battle starts, so I've got Kana ready to tank, and Kaze ready to magitank. If they rush us, I'm ready for that too with strong attackers. If they send in flying reinforcements, I've got Takumi and two brand new bow users in Kaze and Sakura. They don't stand a chance.

I was hoping that I'd be able to get by with Plan A. A is for “Avoid this entirely”, which is why I tried to make sure nobody would sing the cursed song. But alas, it seems I have to resort to plan B.

And B is for “BEATING THE SHIT OUT OF ANYONE WHO WOULD DARE ATTACK MY FAMILY”.

Begin.

As I feared might happen, we've been broadsided. How to respond...

The classic bait and slaughter seems the best place to start.

...Tiny snag, War Journal:

...They backed away. My daughter and I are now stranded on the enemy ship. I'm not sure how frequently these shifts are going to transpire, but I was extremely lucky it happened to the two of us and not anybody else. You see, thankfully Kana's personal skill means she regenerates while equipped with a dragonstone, and being my army's best tank duo the two of us are easily the best two people to have been put in this situation, especially since if I can get out of range of the bow users for a moment I can just switch to myself in the front and fly us both away shortly after.

As a matter of fact, that's precisely what I plan to do.

Oh you poor naïve fools. You expected to ambush me with your dark magic and your eldritch horrors, but there is nothing more shocking, nothing more unknowable than the ninja riding the Giant Mechanical Lion!

Right, I see the pattern here. It seems to alternate which ship is boarding us each “round” of combat. Good to know.

I bait the unhighlighted berserker with my tasty, dual-guard-prepared self, readying some magic to retaliate with to his face when he takes the bait. Then I have everyone head up to prepare to kill anyone else who boards from the north.

Step 21 on my path to greatness.

Incidentally, Horse Spirit is easily my new favorite scroll. Look at those bonuses. Look at them.

I bait the dark mages once more with Kaze.

Well this is a bit of a sticky situation. The southern ship has fully unloaded itself onto ours, and the northern ship has boarded. We could be in danger if we don't do a serious rout immediately.

My plan is as follows:

Silas takes down this dark mage...

Putting him in just the right position for Azura to sing him back into action...

Simultaneously giving Silas the speed he needs to double this adventurer with his practice katana...

...And giving Sakura a dual strike partner and accuracy boost to take down this outlaw much more reliably (good thing too, she missed the first attack anyway).

Then to the southeast I have Kaden take down this sorcerer...

Kaze kills the lowermost dark mage...

Takumi kills the remaining sorcerer...

And finally I one-shot the southernmost outlaw...

...Leaving all of my units safely out of the way of the northernmost one!

And as if to cap off this glorious gambit, Kaden and Silas are now both level 20 and ready to promote!

After that excitement, the battle is fairly straightforward. I have Kana ready to tank like a princess in the event of that berserker scoring a critical (I really wish I knew the formula, but Kana could survive even if he were to critical and somehow also double and critical again.

They called in reinforcements. Oh, but it is far too late for that, War Journal. They had their chance to make their mark on my army, now they must watch themselves go the way of their hopes and dreams, dying slowly and painfully!

Remembering that hand axes and all other traditional throwing weapons bar not just doubling, but also criticals, I give Kaze the opportunity to practice with his new bow before finishing the berserker off with Hana.

...Aaaaand he's shooting the arrows out of the mouth of his Giant Mechanical Lion, War Journal. I think I'm in love.

Kaden has managed to become even more glorious in his new nine-tailed form.

Development on the critical resistance formula: It seems that it's a direct one-to-one with luck, as Robin informs me it's always been. Odd. I could've sworn some enemies could critical my units in spite of them having high luck.

Takumi just achieved level 20, but sadly I seem to be out of Master Seals for the moment.

The rest of the battle was barely worth mentioning. It was just a rather dull game of baiting and killing the remaining stragglers with docking and separating ships. Eventually I killed their leader and the battle ended. With that over, we called Shigure back from belowdeck.

Azura: Shigure, it's over now, you can come out!

Shigure: Thank you, mother. I appreciate your- oh gods... so much blood... I...

Dakota: Oh come on, if you can't stand a little blood, you'll never be a sky knight!

Shigure: I... you are right... and I can't rely on others protecting me anymore. It'll surely cost me dearly some day. I'll fight with all of you from now on!

Dakota: Glad to hear it, son! Another royal family member will make a glorious addition to the mighty army of East Dakota!

Kana: Papa, who is this tall person with Mama's hair?

Dakota: Oh yes! I almost forgot! Kana, this is your big brother Shigure. Shigure, this is your little sister Kana. Well... technically you're twins I guess... but the whole Deeprealms thing... kinda complicated things...

Kana: Hi big brother! I helped kill the bad people!

Shigure: Please to meet-... Kana...

Kana: Yep! That's me!

Shigure: Kana... why is there b-blood all over your mouth?

Kana: I ate one of them! He tasted like bacon!

...And then Shigure fainted. We'll have to work a little on those nerves of his.

Matt-hue · March 5, 2016

Personally, I think you should do all of the paralogues that you get. 'v'

Edited March 5, 2016 by Matt-hue

Alastor15243 · March 6, 2016

Entry 19

Dear War Journal,

Kana tells me that Shigure has inherited my way with, and love for, animals! He's been entrancing nearby forest critters with his music like some kind of storybook princess. That's adorable!

Kaden and Rinkah are nearly ready to get to babymaking, but I've really been neglecting Rinkah's training, and their child will probably suffer for it. If I can get her a few levels I will.

Oboro and Takumi are in a similar, but less dire, situation. Oboro's a good bit higher leveled than Rinkah, so it shouldn't be as bad.

It appears the question of “To ZeZu or not to ZeZu” has been taken out of my hands. ...But strangely, no child results. Odd. Ah well. Azura would say it's probably for the best that they wait. I would call her crazy, but what exactly can I do? Command them to fuck?

...Hm...

...Moving on, here's Shigure. That skill of his... might be nice to get him a rally skill just so he can make some use of it.

Alas, War Journal, I am torn as to what to promote Takumi into. As a kinshi knight he would be more mobile, more resistant to magic, capable of flight, have access to lances, and with the Fuujin Yumi Takumi really has no need of an S rank in bows. ...Or perhaps he does. To be honest, I've never actually seen an S rank bow before. Anyway...

As a sniper he wouldn't have a new weapon type, but he'd get a bonus to hit and critical rates, he'd still able to glide through terrain with his bow's passive ability so flight would only make a difference for water and stuff, and he wouldn't have a weakness to bows, meaning that it would never be extremely dangerous to deploy him. Besides, I plan on making Shigure a kinshi knight, and I don't think I need two.

...Alright, I'm going with Sniper.

Sadly my efforts to train Rinkah have hit something of a snag. I leveled her up five times, and not once did she gain strength. So between her and Subaki I have a sky knight who doesn't gain speed and an oni savage who doesn't gain strength. Maybe I should've tried getting them to fall in love. A fail husband and a fail wife, and they could've bred together and made horrible mutant fail babies.

...Rinkah did not take kindly to this suggestion, and gained strength, along with a ton of other stuff. Good. Now do that several more times.

...Rinkah goes right back to disappointing, while Kana has basically demonstrated that poor string at the beginning was a total false alarm.

YOU HAVE CURRENTLY GROWN JUST AS MUCH IN MAGIC AS YOU HAVE IN STRENGTH, RINKAH.

...Needless to say I am now quite terrified for the future of this baby, but what's done is done.

Oh because you're in SO much danger of capping that, Rinkah.

The Kanato has been upgraded at long last!

I attempted to get Silas to prepare a nice dish for the army before we headed out, but then this was what resulted. Euuugh. There is absolutely no way I'm allowing my army to eat this.

The astute reader will probably be pointing out the fact that I allowed my own daughter to feast upon human flesh the other day, and I would just like to state for the record, I have not forgotten, and I still stand by my opinion on this travesty of a dish.

Well, hearty meal or not, War Journal, it's time to leave the safety of East Dakota and go on the march again. Thankfully the enemy has not figured out about the limitations of East Dakota and how we can't return to the world from anywhere other than how we last went in, or they'd have camped our position and overwhelmed us now. Still, it's not good. Most paths of progress have been barred by veritable walls of troops, with the exception of the route to Mt. Garou. Of course, I have an extremely skilled ninja on my side, so I'm sure we can arrange for some kind of way to get past-

Wait, did I just say Mt. Garou? Holy shit, did they say Mt. Garou!? The Mt. Garou!? The magical mystical mountain home of the fluffy-eared puppy people!? I thought it was but legend! Myth! A fantastical bedtime story told to my naive childish self! It's real!?

Change of plans, War Journal, we're going to pay a visit to Wolfskin Peak!

War Journal, we've made contact and ohmygodtheyaresoadorablelookatthem!

Oh my god he's in a fancy dress shirt and everything!

Dakota: We have no quarrel with you good fluffy-eared individual we merely seek safe passage through your wonderful home and maybe to touch somebody's ears!

Who are these scoundrels!? Direct us in their general vicinity and I will gladly skin them alive for you and my daughter to wear as hats!

That is the best joke ever! Fuck poachers!

Yes, War Journal, I think we managed to convince them that we mean them no harm! Success! Perhaps we can get them to join us! More adorable canine-people for our army! GLORIOUS! THIS IS THE HAPPIEST DAY OF MY

Garon framed us, War Journal. He had somebody snipe one of those adorable creatures right in front of me and they immediately assumed we were responsible. They're out for our blood now, and... there's no way to talk them out of it. I... I... WHY!? WHY!? WHY DOES THIS HAVE TO HAPPEN TO ME!?

...A couple of them seem to have some extremely nasty skills that I'll have to keep an eye out for lest somebody dies.

I elect to bring all of the units I have personally promoted, along with Hana who's close to promotion, Orochi, who's also close to promotion and can help us at least save a few of these creatures, and Shigure, who needs this first-class lesson in the horrors of war.

...Begin.

...Orochi informs me, too late, that it's virtually impossible to tie up a shapeshifter. She can't capture any of them.

No one can be saved.

Forgive me, majestic creatures.

I'll make this as quick as possible.

With the area cleared, I prepare Hana to take out the next one as soon as possible.

The critical formula continues to baffle me, War Journal. Hana has 14 luck and that Wolfssegner had 15 crit.

Wolfskins from all over start advancing on us. We'll have to kill them as they come. For added crit protection, since Wolfssegners seem to have a significant bonus to it, I give Hana a brass katana.

...I don't care, Hana. Pick whichever you want, I'm not in the mood.

No no no! Please! Not more of them! Don't just throw your lives away!

Please, Son. Now. Is not. The time.

More reinforcements. More wolfskins senselessly rushing to die.

Got a new stone for Kaden. It should make him a bit sturdier in high-danger situations, so that's nice...

And Orochi promoted.

It just... never stops, War Journal.

...In an effort to maintain my sanity and will to live, War Journal, allow me to distract myself by telling you a little story about my childhood. Not that you have any capacity to refuse, of course, but... moving on...

Once, when I was a little boy growing up in the Northern Fortress in Nohr, Big Sister Camilla gave me a music box for my eighth birthday.

Looking back I can't even say for sure it was my birthday. I mean, when they kidnapped me as a child, I wasn't yet old enough to truly remember that I wasn't really from Nohr, and am I really to believe that Garon asked my blood father what my birthday was right before killing him in front of my tiny eyes? No, of course not. But that is besides the point.

The point, War Journal, is that I adored that music box. It played my favorite Nohrian folk tune, known as “Dusk Falls”. This was usually an epic, jaunty and triumphant anthem of victory and conquest, a celebration of the inherent righteousness and glory of fighting for Nohr.

...But this music box was different. It played the song as a haunting and beautiful tune of tiny dancing bells, as of course all music boxes have a tendency to do. I fell asleep to it every night after I got it, and I cherished it dearly.

Whenever it played, War Journal, it made me believe, for a few fleeting moments, that there could be beauty and sorrow in absolutely anything.

Then, one day, less than a year later, I did something I wasn't supposed to do, War Journal.

One day a snowy owl was blown off course by the harsh winter winds and slammed into one of the windows of my room, falling unconscious.

She fell on her side on the large stone windowsill and was dangerously close to rolling off the ledge when I smashed the adjacent window with my practice axe, climbed out, and grabbed her, nearly falling myself.

Relieved to discover the owl was still breathing, I covered the broken window with a sheet and lit a fire in the fireplace to keep the room warm, leaving the unconscious creature to warm up by the fire.

Eventually the owl came to, rightly spooked, and flew out the open window when I revealed it to her.

I felt good about myself that day, War Journal.

The head maid, however, upon discovering the shattered window behind the curtain, immediately demanded to know why I smashed the window.

Maybe she didn't believe me. Maybe she didn't think the owl's life was worth the price of the window. All I know, War Journal, is that Garon was not pleased with me either.

Perhaps he thought I was a lying, destructive brat who simply smashed a window for fun.

Perhaps he didn't believe my story of being willing to destroy an expensive window to save a life.

Perhaps he did. Perhaps that was the problem.

Whatever the case, a week after the incident, he arrived at the Northern Fortress, grabbed me without a word, and dragged me out of the castle without a coat and deep into the surrounding woods.

He then took out my music box, wound it up, and placed it on the cold forest ground as snow began to fall.

Then he handed me my practice axe.

And told me to smash it.

And that if I didn't do so before it stopped playing, he'd leave me out in those woods for three days.

“If you can't follow a simple, direct order,” he told me, his voice colder than the brutal midwinter night air, “then I have absolutely no interest in calling you my son. Maybe if you turn out to be strong enough to survive for three days in the wild, you might be worth the trouble.”

I stood there, listening to my beloved music box play my favorite tune, paralyzed, my hands trembling with the practice axe in my grip.

I loved that music box, War Journal, I loved it with all of my heart. It was easily my most prized possession.

...But the blistering cold terrified me too much. Garon terrified me too much.

I smashed the music box, War Journal. Tears in my eyes, I smashed the thing, wanting desperately to grow more arms so I could cover my ears and shut out the horrible sound.

For even as I smashed it to pieces, my beloved music box spent its final moments desperately trying to gasp out my favorite tune for me, more out of tune and arrhythmic with every blow of the blunt training axe in my trembling hands.

Until finally, the music was gone.

I never heard that version of the song again, War Journal.

I know why he did it, of course.

It's the first tenet of his philosophy for being a ruler.

The quickest way to crush any will to rebel or defy remaining in a person: make them realize that there is nothing in the world they love more than they fear you.

Garon underestimated me, however.

In spite of his best efforts, I grew stronger and braver from the experience, and more to the point, more clever, and eventually I would find the strength to defy him again.

So why am I telling this story?

To make it clear, for the record: what Garon is doing to me now is simply what Garon does to his misbehaving children.

He takes them outside, gives them a weapon...

...and forces them to destroy the things they love.

There will be blood for this, War Journal. Garon could become a vampire this very night and gorge himself on the blood of all the men, women, children and livestock in his entire kingdom and there still wouldn't be enough blood in his body for him to bleed what he deserves to when I finally chop off that bastard's wretched head. I refuse to allow him to do this to me again, War Journal. Never. Again.

...War Journal... you probably will not believe this...

...But another tragedy has struck.

...We lost one of our most valuable soldiers, the one I worked so hard to win the loyalty of.

...We lost Kaze.

I don't know what happened, War Journal. I don't know why Gigi wasn't with me at that exact moment. I don't know why she didn't hear me when the earth caved in and Kaze grabbed me and kept me from falling into the yawning abyss beneath us. I don't know how he fell in after tossing me for Hinoka to catch.

I don't understand any of it, but all of it happened.

...Kaze is dead, War Journal.

...I can't, War Journal, I just can't. Enough. Enough talk for tonight. I must rest.

Edited March 24, 2016 by Alastor15243

Moblin Major General · March 6, 2016

Someone forgot that

Kaze needed an A support with MU to live. Unless that was intentional.

Edited March 6, 2016 by Hylian Air Force

Alastor15243 · March 6, 2016

Someone forgot that

Kaze needed an A support with MU to live.

Unless that was intentional.

...This is a blind run of the game. I didn't know that, and I'd still rather not know that.

I had it tagged as semiblind and mentioned it in the OP, but I just put it in the thread title so this doesn't happen again.

Edited March 6, 2016 by Alastor15243

Clarinets · March 6, 2016

Someone forgot that Kaze needed an A support with MU to live. Unless that was intentional.

You're supposed to put spoilers in spoiler tags, you know.

This entry was very good and well-written, Alastor. Great job!

Alastor15243 · March 7, 2016

Thanks!

Just letting everyone know, there might not be an update tonight, the mission I did was something I felt was in-character for Dakota to do at this point, but it was really easy and boring, to the point that I barely felt like covering it, so I'm adding in a new one, but I might not finish it tonight.

Alastor15243 · March 7, 2016

Entry 20

Dear War Journal,

Kaze's death has been a severe blow to the strength of East Dakota's army. He was our only remotely competent thrown weapons user.

As if to drive this point home, who should show up at East Dakota immediately after my return... but Jakob? He's garbage, War Journal. Look at him. He's around a dozen levels above virtually everyone else in my main force and yet he wouldn't stand a chance against basically any of them in single combat. Why.

I find myself faced with the prospect of training one of the other ninjas to take his place.

And yet I find I must remind myself that, to some people, Kaze was more than just a valuable member of this army, he was a friend and loved one. Indeed, Mozu, his new wife and now widow, had some key words to say to me the very moment I returned to the castle and walked up to her.

Truly, a stirring eulogy fit for the angels themselves.

As I upgrade the dawn dragon statue, it occurs to me that my set of statues resembles a graveyard. Fitting. I hope it doesn't become any more prophetic.

I've been desperate to get my mind off of what I did the other day.

From helping my son practice his archery...

To setting up an art exhibition for my son's work...

...To reforging Gigirant...

Nothing works, War Journal.

I've been training Saizo and Kagero to fill the niche Kaze's death left in my army. I doubt they'll be anywhere near as fabulous as he was, though...

Pseudo-interesting development, I guess, War Journal: While Rinkah is abysmal as a fighter, she's somehow a lightning tank. With any luck, their child will be sturdier as a result.

Bought some new weapons, including a ludicrously accurate bow that'll probably be useful if I run into another flier with bowbreaker.

...Ugh, I can't take this anymore! What is wrong with me!? I'm Dakota Waterstone Vendelgate of Nohr! The single most awesome, sexiest, and best person who has ever lived! I can't let Garon demoralize me! I can't let those canine screams haunt my nightmares anymore! I have to put this behind me. Somehow. But the only things I can think of that'll help me get my groove back are recruiting an adorable canine-human hybrid or letting off some steam by violently and brutally slaughtering a bunch of people nobody would ever shed a tear for.

OH HAPPY DAY, WAR JOURNAL!

Hear me, warriors of East Dakota!

Our objective is to rescue Kaden's adorable fox puppy daughter! Get her safely over here as soon as possible!

And then... and then... as for our enemies... Kill them! Kill every last one of them! Make them bleat like sheep and squeal like pigs! Cut their scalps off and wear them as hats if it please you! Just make sure they die in unknowable, pants-shitting fear!

Oh, War Journal, it was wonderful.

The screams... the beautiful, beautiful screams... we bathed in poacher blood... and Kana has herself a darling new hat now!

Everything went perfectly, to such a degree that it was almost boring. Or it would have been, if the sheer joy of nigh-cosmically overpowering a cowardly and wretched foe weren't so... intoxicating. We have a new ally in Selkie, and her growths are...

...a little shoddy so far...

...But let's not forget that Kana also had a rather shoddy initial track record with growths, and she's turned out fine in the long run. Speaking of which...

Kana has unlocked the secret of the first discipline of the Hoshido Noble, and I am... less than impressed, to be perfectly honest. There's no way I'm ever putting anybody valuable in a situation where this would ever be useful.

I think the post-slaughter rush may have made me delirious, War Journal. I could've sworn I heard Rinkah actually, legitimately, genuinely, unironically suggesting knitting to her daughter as a hobby.

Whatever the case, War Journal, I now have my groove back, and I think it's time to continue the war against Garon!

We've just arrived in Macarath, and we were greeted by this fascinating aperture into the darkest depths of Freudian psychology. A lamp in the shape of a headless, armless naked woman, straddling and grinding the bar of another, smaller lamp. This has to mean something, I'm certain of it. But damned if I know what that something is.

Disaster strikes. Yet again. Because of course it did. I never start writing outside of East Dakota and then return without a battle breaking out. Though interestingly, this time one hasn't happened. Yet. This time, apparently, Takumi contracted something off of the wolfskins, some kind of nasty, wretched virus they get from... eating rotten corpses...?

...Okay, what? Of all the people in my group who could've contracted this, why was it my sniper!? My own daughter bit into their flesh and drank their blood and didn't catch anything, Shigure lanced most of them at point-blank range... how he hell did this happen to Takumi!?

Regardless, this forces our hand. We must go to the Macarath palace and raid their apothecary for the herb that'll keep this from killing him, because I am not losing another of my best troops to non-battle circumstances! I manage to keep everyone live with no casualties whatsoever, and then things other than war start killing them!? Enough! I WILL NOT BE MOCKED LIKE THIS, DESTINY!

Mediocre-to-good news, War Journal! We've found Flora again! And while if Joker and Felicia are any indication she'll be useless in battle, she knows where the apothecary is! Maybe

Aaaaaaaand Iago's just showed up. And holy cow do they have a ton of enemies waiting for us. They're really tightly packed, so carving out some breathing room is going to be both top priority and rather difficult. But even worse, War Journal...

Solid, ironclad proof that Garon intentionally gave me the worst servants.

Anyway, I brought Kagero along. I plan on playing matchmaker with her and Ryoma because quite frankly the woman's so obsessed with doing her job of serving him that I can't imagine her being willing to devote a significant portion of her life to literally anybody else.

Also because I want a royal child.

But enough talk.

Begin.

I start by using my dragonvision to highlight all bow-using or magical enemy units. Anybody who i'll have to calculate damage with something other than attack-defense for.

Next, Hayato earns some experience by taking down one of these weirdly-placed knights who are guarding basically nothing. Orochi fells the other.

Next, Silas takes down this fighter. I'd attack the hero, but from this position Silas will be in the fighter would have more access to my party, plus it's a one-hit kill so there'll be less potential total damage taken, so the fighter it is.

Kagero takes down the first layer of both human walls with her sting shuriken and a convenient song from Azura...

And Kaden and Kana bring down the second layer, standing in front and prepared to tank. Azura stands to potentially take a shot from the outlaw over there, but she can handle it, and she can also take an additional dual strike if that outlaw in that room unlocks that door and the closest dark mage runs up to assist the outlaw. But frankly I'd rather she not be put in this position. For being our highest-level unit, she's... very fragile.

As suspected, the outlaws unlocked the doors, because of course, they were stuck in tiny rooms, what else would they do? But surprisingly they waited until after the outlaw in the hall attacked, sacrificing some dual strike opportunities.

Kagero finished off one of the outlaws and the northern hero that Silas wounded, leaving the entire area behind my new defensive wall completely enemy-free. Incidentally, Kaden's new beastrune makes him an exceptional all-around tank. Only slightly worse than Kana at physical tanking and way better at magical tanking (though Kana's still great at that). For the time being, as all visible locktouch outlaws are in this exact area, I have no reason to rush and several reasons to take this slow, so that's what we do.

Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. I need to get moving on this.

With some clever placement and use of the lunge ability...

The would-be stolen treasure is mine, and now Orochi and Kaden are positioned to take down the northern dark mage and the southern fighter when they charge.

The other outlaw makes his way towards the other chests. By my math we have 11 “rounds” of battle before he makes it there and escapes through the nearest staircase. However, we have an opportunity to end him right now before he gets too deep into enemy territory.

After a quick transfer and song, Shigure is now primed to kill this outlaw and basically eliminate the time limit on this battle entirely unless another outlaw comes along...

...And then he will then be attacked by a sorcerer, a maid, a dark mage, and a strategist. However, I've calculated he can survive even the absolute worst-case scenario, which is the maid attacking with her silver knife (25 atk – 21 def -2 song of peace -2 supportive = 0 damage), nerfing his defense and resistance by 4 and thereby putting his magical resistances at 19 instead of 23 (21 res + 2 supportive). After that, the smartest thing to do would be to attack with the sorcerer (30 – 19 – 1 weapon triangle disadvantage = 10 damage), then attack with the dark mage so that the weakest attack gets dual guarded, and finish off with the strategiest (32 – 19 – 1 weapon triangle disadvantage = 12 damage), doing a total of 22 damage out of 30 HP. And that's assuming all attacks hit, which is generous considering most of them are attacking a lance wielder with tomes. He'll survive, and then with him directly adjacent to the doorway, he'll be able to retreat with ease back to the main group.

Son, I have faith in you. Do it!

So I prepared for the worst case scenario, and in reality nearly the best case scenario happened in that Shigure took no damage, either through dual-guarding or dodging everything except the maid's knife.

OH WHAT'S THE FUCKING POINT!?

Thankfully, it's not as bad as it looks. I step-counted, and he's way further away from getting to that chest and escaping than appearances would suggest. It'll take him at least 9 “rounds”, assuming he doesn't grab both treasures, to get from those stairs to a chest and back to the stairs. So we have some time. A promoted footsoldier can get to that staircase in around four or five “rounds”.

First I have Orochi, who I don't plan on having tank so her defense score is irrelevant, soak up a hit from the silver dagger so Kaden can finish her off without getting hit with it.

Then with Azura singing him back into action he can head up to this bottleneck and equip his beastrune to attack that dark mage. Of the remaining four enemies in that area, all but one of them are capable of ranged attacks. But if their behavior is anything like I've come to expect, when the first ranged attacker takes up the only position from which to attack Kaden at range, the rest will uselessly suicide into him, because how convenient for them! Their friends keep dying when attacking him in melee, so there's always enough room for more! Thereby clearing up the map to continue an unimpeded advance.

Like moths to a flame, War Journal.

And with the annoying strategist pre-baited and killed, I can use this wall for a similar room-clearing trick with Shigure's archery!

Well hey there, reinforcements! Just in time to be used as training dummies for my replacement goldfish!

A gap between the orb turret ranges means that Silas has just enough space to bait this hero without getting magicked into oblivion.

More outlaws show up, but they don't have locktouch so they're not a huge problem.

Having never manned a fire orb myself I have absolutely no idea how their attack power works. Does it add on the operator's magic power? That would normally be nasty, but Kaden's resistance is so obscene (at 29 with the beastrune equipped) that even that outcome isn't a problem for him.

This is a pretty inconvenient range. Depending on how powerful the fire orbs turn out to be (I'm about to test that) I may have to only bring my most mobile or resistant units to chase after that outlaw.

Well, Kaden took no damage, suggesting to me that, at the very least, it doesn't add on the full magic power of the mage manning it (it might add on a portion), otherwise it would've done at least 2 to Kaden. This alleviates my concerns somewhat, but I'm still going to be cautious. At least now I know there's no danger to putting Kaden specifically in range of those turrets.

Singing can give Silas the one space boost he needs to get through the fire orb trajectory.

Oh that will soon be mine, I assure you. But now that I think about it...

...This is the second instance I can recall of the Nohrian army robbing its own country. I can't even begin to fathom the logic behind this, though it sure as hell does make it annoying for me.

Whatever the case, the walking bag of 13000 big ones is now mine.

With the reinforcements subsided and the paths to the treasure secure, I raid the remaining two chests before proceeding. I get a goddess icon and an arms scroll for my trouble.

All that remains is the inner sanctum.

Recognizing the general and sorcerer duo to be immobile, I try to see how dedicated the lowermost dark mage is to manning that turret by having Shigure equip a bow and stop at the very edge of his non-turret range.

Bad news and good news: Bad news is, the dark mage didn't budge. Good news is, even Shigure's slightly lower resistance was enough to fully tank the turret blast, so it can't be very powerful. Better still, that is one nasty drawback to Iago's weapon. Oh it is going to be so easy to gimp that.

Now possessing enough information to know that it's safe for Azura to join the advance force, I'm prepared to take apart their final defenses.

Kagero, the member of my team in greatest need of training (the rest of my team gets virtually nothing from the non-promoted units), uses her sting shuriken to take potshots at the general while Azura then sings her to move out of range of the supporting sorcerer's potential counterattacks. However, the sorcerer turns out to not be immobile without the general, so I take it out quickly before I get swarmed by being in the same range as Iago and his other dark mage.

I rely on Orochi and a charge of a rescue staff to prevent anyone from getting swarmed.

To play it safe, I have Kaden lure them in and facetank it.

Only the dark mage takes the bait, so I have Kagero, the only one who stands to gain any experience from it, take him down.

Having conveniently built up a dual guard, I consider having her bait Iago to get that kill too. But first I test to make sure that turrets don't use up dual guards. It seems they do. Or at least that somehow dodging them makes the dual guard meter deplete. Odd. Well there goes that plan. More facetanking with Kaden!

And with him taking the bait and crippling his magic... let's end this.

It seems when he uses nothing but his magic-crippling tome, his magic alternates between crippled and un-crippled with each shot anyway. So to play it safe, take it away, son!

Let him do as he pleases. The days where Garon terrifies me are long over.

Aaaaand he got away. Or more specifically, War Journal, aparently he was neeeeever eeeven heeeeere. OOOOooooh! Spoooooky! Ugh, what a pathetic coward.

So... something I forgot to mention, War Journal, mostly because it barely merits mentioning: Iago dropped some really obnoxious claims that there's a spy among us, feeding him information. That's a laugh. Not that I trust the entirety of my army automatically or anything, War Journal, but he was hilariously transparent about it. What on Earth would he stand to gain by revealing the existence of a spy in my group other than to, as he said, make me paranoid and unable to trust my subordinates? It's blatantly obvious there is no spy and that he's been getting his information on my army by, oh, I don't know, teleporting? That thing he does? Literally all the time? There's no other reason why he'd tell me. Except, of course, to make me reject it outright and become complacent, but Iago's not nearly clever enough to resort to something like that. Nevertheless, I will not get complacent, and I'll have to talk to my subordinates about ways to deal with potential teleport-eavesdropping.

As for Takumi, with the palace clear we managed to get the herbs, but he's still not entirely on his feet yet. Unfortunately, but what can you do?

In any case, Flora rejected the invitation I never gave to join my army, and instead requested to be taken home to the ice tribe village. She also granted us sanctuary there. I tried to politely point out that I have my own pan-dimensional castle with which to safeguard my army, but yet again that didn't seem to any of my companions to be a good idea. Whatever, we have to keep moving forward, so I suppose I won't overrule them on this. This time.

Alastor15243 · March 8, 2016

Entry 21

Dear War Journal,

Finally I'm granted the opportunity to expand my private treehouse! Fantastic!

Lilith's temple, the accessory shop, and the records hall also got an expansion.

But more importantly, the training of Kaze with breasts is now complete! BEHOLD THE GLORIOUS RETURN OF THE GIANT MECHANICAL LION!

Alas, this comes at a price, War Journal: for now we are completely out of master seals. We won't be able to promote anybody else. Thankfully I'm quite satisfied with the army I've already assembled.

Back to the topic of accessories, I found my daughter operating the accessory shop, and she made this absolutely darling bracelet for me! Awwww, look at it! It's adorable!

Alas, on to more serious business, for now we must leave the warm, perpetual-spring land of East Dakota for the cold, perpetual-winter land of the ice tribe. Only Felicia, Flora and I seem to be able to handle the intense cold, they because they grew up here and have special ice powers or something, and I because, well... let's just say after that little incident I told you about I refused to let the cold scare me ever again. My usual lord outfit wasn't always barefoot, you know.

Regardless, everyone else is shivering and complaining and grumbling. Good heavens! It's almost as if taking this detour was completely and utterly pointless! Now that everyone finally realizes how stupid this whole affair is, perhaps I can convince everyone to simply head back to East Dakota now or head further inland some other way!

...This suggestion... did not seem to sit well with Flora for some reason. She really, really wants us to visit her home. Does she not realize we're in the middle of a war? I'm trying to overthrow the Nohrian government and assume my rightful place as ruler of the unwashed masses, thank you very much!

Change of plans, War Journal, we're staying! Flora just told me about this horrendous locale's delightful wildlife, including adorable fluffy white snow bunnies! Not just that, but she says she has one as a pet back at her house, and that if we come with her we'll get to see it! Oh gods I can't wait, War Journal!

I... fell right into that one, War Journal.

Oh no! Flora was the spy all along!

...Is what an idiot would say, War Journal. She literally just joined our entourage. How could she be the spy who ratted out the resistance's safehouse if she wasn't even part of the resistance? Yes, she's clearly a traitor and must therefore be punished, but this is clearly not the end of Iago's plotting.

Also, look at those stats. Typical. Once again all the good servants are loyal to Garon.

Of more immediate concern is the total lack of visible enemies anywhere. It would appear that Flora is using her ice powers to intensify the blizzard and conceal the enemy. That... is worrisome. I'll have to be extremely cautious and proceed with my most mobile and tankiest tanks. But I'll have to be fast, thanks to those villages. Logic would dictate Flora wouldn't tolerate the pillaging of her own home, but past experience has pretty clearly indicated that on this point logic can go fuck itself, so I'm going to assume those villages won't stay unpillaged for long.

Begin.

...It occurs to me I might have wanted to bring Felicia here as a diplomat with the villagers. Visiting the village actually accomplishes nothing and only causes enemies to appear.

...On the plus side, instead of getting one goodie from a village, I can now get two goodies from the enemies who appeared from going there!

Freezing the lake and crossing it prompts the appearance of what I'm assuming is the lion's share of the enemy force.

Knowing what a pain in the ass silver dagger maids are, I conspire to have this particular maid felled in one hit.

Then, realizing that two nearby enemies are 2-range locked, I initially plan to put Takumi in a position to fell them both on enemy phase, but then I remember that this place is rife with ambushes, and I really shouldn't do any significant advancement when I've already given commands to most of my army for now.

Again, silver daggers = bad, so I clear the closest enemies while staying out of the maid's range with a little help from Azura. Again, I'm going to wait until everyone can move before checking out that village.

Another delay to checking out the village as I neutralize both maids in one shot with Takumi thanks to some clever positioning.

Huzzah! More attempted ambushes bearing gifts!

My B group fully separates to best do the most damage when the “ambush” happens right on schedule.

Unfortunately, it's one too many for my B team to defeat. I'll have to work out which one I can afford to leave alive. I ultimately decide on the maid, since she's the hardest to kill in one hit and if she survives after getting a counterattack on her attacker, that'll be nasty.

In a pleasant surprise, a child is sympathetic to us and gives us a large amount of money, with no ambush!

The final squad, save for possibly the forces from the last village, is pretty straightforward to bait.

Ooh!

The stat penalties it inflicts on the user are unfortunate, but this could still be very handy in certain situations.

With everyone but Flora dealt with, and both squads reunited, time to check out this last village.

The resulting “ambush” was easily dealt with, and I got a sheep spirit scroll. Time to deal with Flora.

Aaaaand done! Well! That was easy!

Step 23 on my path to greatness.

Right then, I left her alive as an information source and also to avoid having to watch Felicia bawling her eyes out for weeks. God that would be such a pain. She cooperates and tells me she was being blackmailed by Garon and forced into fighting us or else the whole village would burn.

Classic Garon right there.

But anyway, War Journal, this is fantastic! This means she's sympathetic to our side and hates Garon's guts! She has no reason not to join us! We can recruit her! And now that I know she's the only competent servant available to us, she'll be a valuable and powerful and very much welcome addition to our army! Time to ask her to join us!

...Oh. Oh. Ohhhhhh.

...Huh. Well. That's... uh... I...

...Bye... then...?

Alastor15243 · March 9, 2016

[spoiler=my thoughts on that chapter]

I don't plan on breaking character to talk about my thoughts on the game much, but...

...Seriously, what was I supposed to feel there? I simply don't get why she killed herself. And like that? And so quickly after the death of Kaze? Seriously, I almost found that self-immolation scene funny for how stupid it felt.

Edited March 9, 2016 by Alastor15243

Omegaprism · March 9, 2016

Agreed! It was as though they had a quota for dead people, and when the lead up for the ice tribe village started they went, "Balls! We're behind! Quick, light that one on fire!"

Alastor15243 · March 10, 2016

Entry 22

Dear War Journal...

...So... a... a thing... happened? I think? I'm very, very confused right now.

Kana: Papa, why did that servant girl light herself on fire?

Dakota: Oh! That! Yes! ...Well... you see, sweetie... when a servant girl and a raging fire love each other very much...

Azura: DAKOTA!

Dakota: Er, uh... I think she felt really guilty about what she did...? But not guilty enough to actually make up for it by joining us...? So she used her magic powers to light herself on fire...?

Kana: I thought she had ice powers, not fire powers.

Dakota: Yeah, but according to Felicia their ice powers work by taking the heat from elsewhere into themselves, so... I suppose... maybe she overheated from using her powers too much? Maybe? Except she didn't summon up a huge blizzard to cause it, she just raised her hand and boom, she was on fire... Did anybody notice if she doused herself in oil first?

Azura: DAKOTA!

Dakota: I'M SORRY, OKAY!? I DON'T GET IT AT ALL! I DON'T UNDERSTAND! WHY CAN'T I EVER GET A SINGLE GOOD SERVANT!?

...Well then. Moving on.

Uh...

Hayato was at the forge, so I made a new fancy scroll! Yaaaaaay!

Also...

Kagero and Ryoma got married! I immediately issued a royal edict that they get to babymaking immediately both for the fitness of our army and for morale after that... rather confusing spectacle. Ryoma actually had the audacity to refuse, even pulling rank on me! “Excuse me, little brother,” quoth he, “but you're the ruler of a little toy kingdom with a population of about two dozen visitors. I'm the oldest and the rightful heir to the throne of Hoshido. My wife and I will decide when to have children, thank you very much!”

Oh, and how's that working out for you, “Onii-Chan”? Who exactly did you leave in charge back home with mother being, you know, dead? Who's keeping public order? Who's keeping your precious constituents from descending into anarchy and reverting to their primitive instincts to shoot blood out of their noses and have sex with their sisters!? Anyone!? I THOUGHT NOT! AND FOR THE RECORD MY CASTLE IS FABULOUS!

...Oh and also, since Flora had to go and off herself in the single most traumatizing way conceivable by man or beast, right in front of her own sister, Felicia has deteriorated from “adorably clumsy” to “creepily nervous wreck capable of shattering dishes and burning laundry just by looking at them, with a grotesque stapled-on smile that makes Gigi fly away in terror”.

So I replaced her with Jakob for the time being.

As for training exercises, I trained Robin some more. His speed's quite shoddy, but what can you do? He's got a powerful tome and I think he might be useful, especially since he's a member of a class nobody else has even heard of, one that, like Azura, doesn't even need a Master Seal to reach its full potential, but he's phenomenally antisocial and hasn't made any friends and that doesn't show any signs of changing.

Anyway, War Journal, our next stop is the Woods of the Forlorn. An absolutely dreadful place, but apparently it's the quickest and least obvious way into Nohr, so that's the way I've decided we'll go.

...Gods but this is taking forever. Right! How to kill time... Ah! I know!

Dakota: So, Robin! Now that I've decided to make you a member of my main army, why don't you tell me about yourself?

Robin: ...What do you care?

Dakota: I don't! At all! I'm just trying to distract myself from this dreadful, icky forest!

Setsuna: Hey, some of us are actually walking through this, y'know!

Dakota: Anyway, you're always so ominous and weird about yourself and as annoying as that is I'll admit it's gotten me at least a tiny bit curious. So why don't you spill?

Robin: My story is... complicated. Very difficult to explain. I doubt you'll believe me.

Dakota: I'm a dragon on a dragon with a pan-dimensional castle. I take that as a challenge.

Robin: To put it simply... I was like you in many respects. I lost my memory when I was about twenty or so, and I somehow wound up in a position as the chief strategist of an entire kingdom. I led a ragtag army to victory through a war or two before... things got weird. Time travel weird. And then I wound up having to fight to prevent a zombie apocalypse that would slowly swallow up all life on Earth.

Dakota: Did you succeed?

Robin: ...Yes...

Dakota: Then why the hell are you so miserable all the time!? If you're telling the truth, you're almost as awesome as I am! Ooh! Scary thought! But seriously! What business does a man like you have being so ridiculously gloomy all the time!?

Robin: Well... you see...

Leo: DAKOTA! THIS ENDS NOW!

FUCK.

I guess this'll have to wait, War Journal. We've been ambushed by Leo and an army of faceless.

...Who were totally here a second ago. Oh god not this again. Are we going to have to worry about ambush reinforcements again? On such a tiny battlefield? With hazards!? Well the hazards are actually easily avoidable, but still...

Right, fighting Leo is going to be difficult, but with my current track record of nonlethal boss kills I'm confident I don't need Orochi to spare him. And then we can sit this headstrong idiot down and explain to him what the hell is going on. FINALLY.

Learning my lesson from the last instance of this, I limit the number of units I have in guard stance so that I have as many attacking members as possible. Only my tanks and Robin (who really needs the speed Hinata gives him) are paired up.

Speaking of speed, I now notice that without Ryoma supporting her, Kagero is much slower than Kaze was. She's also stronger too, but still, it's kinda weird having a ninja who occasionally has trouble doubling.

There's not much I can talk about. My usual team comes along.

Begin.

The lion's share of the faceless appear immediately after battle begins, so at least we don't have to worry about that song and dance. But the northern half of the battlefield is still suspiciously enemy-free, so I want to avoid moving too far north.

Further complicating matters is the fact that Leo has a truly staggering amount of reach on this battlefield. I won't be able to clear out these enemies all at once.

Thankfully, I really don't have to. Look at this, War Journal. Their attack power is pathetic!

As such, it's trivially easy to form a wall made of units who won't take any damage from them to shield my more squishy members. What's better, all of us can one-round them except for Shigure, whose attack power is suffering due to having to equip the guard naginata.

...Sadly, more keep coming, and I'm getting nervous that at any moment Leo might just rush us, and I'm not sure I'm prepared for that.

...Aaaaand he's started moving.

...Only to go right back to where he was. Curious.

...Reinforcements keep coming at a rapid pace. Literally none of them can harm any of the lead units in our formation, but breaking formation for even a moment could have disastrous consequences for my weaker units, there's simply not enough time to wipe them out outside of a tanking formation.

...It suddenly occurs to me that Hinata, the unit I have assigned to do nothing but support Robin, is the one I gave Robin's bookshelf backpack to. How fitting, he's basically Robin's book caddy.

Things continue in their rather straightforward and painfully uninteresting way when suddenly...

Robin: Wait... that Sorcerer... is that...?

Robin: ...Dakota, I need to talk to that man. Right now.

Dakota: What, the one dressed in more sheer veils than a bellydancer?

Robin: ...Yes. That one. I need to talk to him!

Dakota: We're in a tight spot.

Robin: Oh. I see. So you don't think you're good enough to get me there.

...Gods damn it, War Journal, am I really this easy to manipulate? Alright fine, Robin, I'll clear a path for you! But this had better be important!

I'm going to buy us a little more breathing room than this. I have a feeling that this time the retainers will retreat the second Leo goes down, and Leo and this Odin fellow have the exact same attack range from where they are, so this will have to be done cleverly.

What a stroke of good fortune! Leo moved to the other side! Is there a way for us to take advantage of this tiny window of opportunity?

As it turns out, yes! Yes there is!

Silas and I prepare to tank-and-clear the hordes of faceless before they reach us. This is crucial now that we've abandoned our hiding spot.

Step 24 on my path to greatness nets me the first discipline of the Malig Knight!

Odin: ...ROBIN!? Robin, is that you!?

Robin: Owain! So it is you! I thought I recognized that shouting!

Odin: ...Jeez, what a thing to be remembered for. Shouting. Anyway, I go by Odin now. But never mind that! What the hell happened, man? You disappeared after killing Grima! We thought you were dead! Well... most of us, anyway. Chrom and a few others never gave up hope.

Robin: I figured I was dead. That was the plan. I figured I somehow escaped from... the afterlife... and wound up in some alternate dimension. Guess I was wrong if you're here.

Odin: Nope, we dimension-hopped too! Set out for a new life of adventure, and boy did we find it!

Robin: “We”?

Odin: Me and- ...oh. Look, I'm sorry, but they probably wouldn't want me to tell you... some of us wouldn't be as happy as I am to see you. At least one of us resents you for “walking out on us”.

Robin: It was the only way to get rid of Grima for good. I couldn't just force him on our distant successors. I didn't have a choice.

Odin: Oh I totally get it, Robin, I really do, I would've done what you did too. I lived through that nightmare, remember? I'd never allow it the chance to happen again if I were in that position. ...At least I'd like to think that's the choice I'd make.

Robin: I'm sure you would. Speaking of choice... still a dark mage, huh? I figured you'd have ditched that getup the second I died.

Odin: Sorcerer, actually. And no, you were right. I was always a better mage than a warrior. Leo's been great, he's really helped me figure out the best secrets and the coolest moves.

Robin: Leo... so you're with him?

Odin: I'm afraid so. And you're with Dakota?

Robin: For better or worse.

Odin: ...Man, isn't this crazy? Seriously, of all the things I thought I'd see beyond that portal... never in a million years would I think I'd have to fight you. So why are you siding with this guy, anyway? I hear he's a lunatic.

Robin: Oh, he is. Very much so. Completely out of his gourd. But he's an important lunatic. Something about him... I think he's going to be a key player in the fate of this world. It's hard to explain.

Odin: I'll take your word for it... but I can't switch sides, Robin. I owe Leo too much. I'm not gonna kill you or anything, but I'm not letting you win this fight.

Robin: Oh?

Odin: Yeah. Look, you should know...

Robin: Yes?

Odin: You're a father.

Robin: …!

Odin: Yeah. Twins. Boy and a girl. Lucina named them Mark and Morgan.

Robin: Lucina...

Odin: She had them about a week before we left. She... really misses you, Robin. But I'm sure you knew that.

Robin: ...Actually... I did need reminding. Thank you... Odin. Well then. Why don't you show me what you've learned?

Odin: It would be an honor, Robin!

...Huh. Well that was interesting.

Anyway, Robin can't quite finish the job, so I move in to help.

Robin: Dakota, NO!

Dakota: Relax, I didn't kill him! Too important! No way Leo would forgive me if I did that.

Robin: …

...But I will steal his stuff! Score! Another Horse Spirit!

Anyway, time to bait the last two with Kaden.

Light's out for the eyepatched one...

Step 25 on my path to greatness...

Loot acquired...

...And now to deal with dearest little brother Leo.

...And... victory!

Step 26 on my path to greatness!

Score!

...Right. Okay news, bad news, War Journal.

Okay news: While Leo didn't join us yet, I did manage to convince him to stand down and not fight us anymore.

Bad news: In the process of that, Azura revealed that... somehow... despite being a former princess of Nohr... she has... no... blood... relation... to Garon?

...Setting aside the fact that I have no idea how that could possibly work...

...This is bad, War Journal. Hell, most of the reason why I married that woman was to add legitimacy to my claim to the Nohrian throne! But this... This is a problem. If word of this gets out to the general Nohrian public, there's absolutely no way I can become king of Nohr. Have all of my machinations been for naught!? For the last several weeks I've never even considered the possibility that I'd kill Garon and not be king of Nohr.

...Calm down, Dakota. Remember what the goal is. Kill Garon. If the chips must fall elsewhere afterwards... so be it. But Garon must die. That much you know.

...Anyway, Leo informed us that Xander has an incredible power at his disposal that he got from some legendary mythical sage called the Rainbow Sage. While he refused to join us, he did give us a warp book that will send our team there and back! Excellent! We'll rest up at East Dakota and then use it!

Until then, War Journal!

Edited March 10, 2016 by Alastor15243

Alastor15243 · March 11, 2016

Right, just to clarify, I think from now on Thursdays are gonna be my rest day to help me gather my thoughts and avoid potentially burning out with the project. Plus I just felt really really lethargic today in general, so I don't think I would've done a good update anyway.

Alastor15243 · March 11, 2016

Entry 23

Dear War Journal,

Disregard the end to my previous entry. To hell with letting the chips fall where they may. Legitimate claim or not, the throne of Nohr will be mine. I have fought too hard to let somebody else claim the prize for my victory. I will get this legendary power from the Rainbow Sage, defeat Xander, kill Garon, and rule over Nohr! So let's get these pre-battle (because of course this is going to end in a battle) preparations over with and get to work!

Takumi and Oboro have tied the knot, and it seems they want their son to be an archer. I'll check up on them later.

The fishing pond and the lapis spring have been upgraded to full capacity and I now have more fish and lapis than I know what to do with. The lapis will be drained rapidly the next time I need a new forged weapon of course, but as for the fish...

Ah hell with it.

SUSHI TIME!

Good heavens! This sushi is positively orgasmic! How does she do it!?

I really should have Sakura in here all the time if she's this good, but everyone goes on random shifts because this castle has a mind and will of its own and has no grasp of optimization. While East Dakota has its pan-dimensional charms and uses, the day when I can call Castle Krakenburg my own cannot come soon enough.

Anyway, Leo didn't leave any instructions on how exactly to use this warp tome, and Robin's my only magic user who's actually accustomed to reading books rather than scrolls, and he's never heard of a warp tome. So...I guess I'll just have to wing it.

Right... War Journal... quick update...

Good news: everything important made it through. All of the soldiers. All of our weapons, items, supplies, funds, everything we were keeping in the convoy and in our pockets to use for battle, all of that stuff went through.

Bad news: our clothes did not. We all poofed in on the other side in a forest just outside of town, naked as the day we were born, and pandemonium inevitably ensued. I immediately instructed my beloved daughter to enter dragon form for the time being, as I'd hate to be forced to have any of my soldiers executed after finding out any... unpleasant tastes they might have, and everyone screamed and demanded gender segregation and turned backs in a display that would be hilarious if these weren't people I had to deal with. As I am apparently the only person in my entire army who doesn't need several layers of security blankets just to walk out their front door (Including the kitsunes? Really?), it seems that it falls to me to venture out into town to secure garments for all of my subordinates.

My arrival in the town of Notre Sagesse seems to be getting the sort of reception I expected, oh these poor fools. Yes, peasants, the future emperor has no clothes! Gaze upon the genitals of your betters and despair! Or perhaps rejoice! For a few months down the line when I am the unquestioned ruler of all of Nohr and my royal portrait is hung in every room of every home, you will be able to tell the wonderful story to all of your friends: “You know that dashingly handsome and brilliant ruler of all of Nohr, the one whose majesty compels all non-Nohrians like ourselves to curse the day they were born filthy foreigners? I saw his dick!”

On my search for a clothing store, I had a sudden spark of inspiration and began interrogating the townsfolk regarding the whereabouts of this elusive Rainbow Sage. I got veritable nuggets of totally informative and completely on-topic wisdom like “Holy mother of all the gods have some decency, sir!” or “Maybe you should try asking that without your dick hanging out?”, “I ain't buyin' what you sellin'”, and of course my favorite, “Cor blimey, is you on all the drugs?” However, eventually I did come across a man who, while he had similarly unhelpful information to give me regarding the whereabouts of the Rainbow Sage, helped me out on my search greatly in a completely different way, as I am quite certain he is the Rainbow Sage. How? Maybe it's his mysterious and sagacious disposition. Maybe the fact that he's an old man carrying a walking stick he quite clearly does not actually need for walking. Maybe it's the fact that my dragonvision exposed a magic stat on his wrinkly self that borders on the obscene. Whatever the case, through some simple stalking, I've ascertained where he lives.

Right then, I secured enough underwear and swimsuits (including an adorable skirted one-piece for Kana) to preserve everyone's precious modesty until we can finish this mission and return home. As you could probably guess by the lady folk's reactions to me walking in on them in their swimsuits in the hot springs in entries of old, this did not completely quell the crisis, but I refuse to spend more precious wartime funds on things we don't know will even survive the trip back home. Hopefully our clothes were simply left behind and not destroyed, or things will become awkward.

On to the Rainbow Sage's mountain!

Oh War Journal, this is adorable. Look at this! A bona-fide ancient worthiness test!

And look! It's even got a contrived zen practical puzzle where none of the enemies have the defensive stats they're supposed to! Go to the east and everyone's practically immune to physical attacks, take the west route and everyone's basically immune to magical ones! Boy, that would certainly trip up anybody bound to the physical constraints of the natural senses! Good thing I'm not one of those people!

However, this sadly means that Shigure will be useless here, as the side that is susceptible to physical attacks has waaaay too many bow users for me to be comfortable fielding him. Granted, those two adventurers are armed only with staves, but still, 50% of the enemies here have bows, and it's a tight, enclosed space involving stairs that I don't know the travel speed or nature of.

Then the people in the center two rooms have one stat absolutely off the charts and another stat at zero.

Since I have to split up my army and my magical attackers are fewer in number than my physical ones, I have Azura go with the magical group to bolster their attacking power. This shouldn't be too hard, but I'm going to put my tanks up front just in case.

Begin.

Ah, such beautiful sights made possible only thanks to generals with no defense.

Anyway, I block off the stairs with my tanks in case the enemies decide to go through them, and wait to see what happens.

Nothing happens. The enemies make absolutely no effort to exploit my confusion with how these networks of stairs operate to ambush me. ...So I move forward with my plan.

Travel through the stairs apparently takes no time at all, so I'm able to press forward with the attack! But let's see what happens if I didn't start right next to them, by testing with my mighty Silas tank.

Interesting. Switching formations takes too long to go down the stairs immediately afterwards. Looks like Kaden's gonna have to fend for himself for a little while. He's a massive tank, he'll be fine.

Oh the east side, Kana makes short work of the resistance-lacking enemies.

Strangely, while switching takes too long, moving significant distances towards the stairs does not. The stairs strangely have physics-defying properties that allow us to cross them without expending any extra movement within them and use the rest of our movement on the other side.

Anyway, Kagero gets an interesting but rather situational skill.

Getting past this battle's central gimmick with the wonky, overspecialized stats, stair-based ambushes (and the enemy's staunch refusal to exploit them) make this fight surprisingly, trivially straightforward.

Kagero nabs the treasure on the western side...

And once I clear out this area, she'll move over to the eastern side. We just have to deal with two lance using priests with no strength and two ninjas with no speed (and one of them has no magic either, which sucks for him because he's using a magical flame shuriken that will SOON BE MINE). But the point is, not even the one without a zero ranked attack stat can put a dent in my daughter's armor even without her dragonstone, so they're all dead.

Kaden gets a skill that proves the Kitsune's adorable fascination with even numbers.

Oh if only any of my shuriken users had any proficiency in magic. Shame all of my servants suck.

And the other treasure turns out to be a wane festal! Excellent! Now for the final room. First I wait for the negative defensive effects of those shuriken to wear off.

Okay this seems to be the only room that might be a serious issue. While these berserkers have positively pathetic health, they also have truly terrifying strength and critical power, and I still haven't fully ascertained how critical rates work. Thankfully, there is a safe way to test.

Rallied and danced up to improve luck, my daughter and I venture forth into the final room so I can calculate directly what the critical rate is. A normal attack will still do serious damage to my daughter, but not enough to kill as long as it's just one, so whatever happens I need to stay out of the way of the identical pair at the back of the room. As it turns out, we're completely safe, but if we weren't, I'd have killed the berserker and then had Orochi rescue us back. However, since the other berserker can't reach here, we're going to wait it out on the stairs.

However, rather than opt to attack with the powerful but fragile berserker who stands to do much more damage, they opt to attack with the super-fast but utterly skillless swordmaster who can do two even less accurate hits... of one damage each. After a quick heal and luck recharge, the only enemies who can move are dealt with.

The final guard, two high-HP but strengthless spear masters and the only gimmickless enemy in the building, quickly fall due to their stalwart and stupid refusal to move, and a bolt naginata becomes mine.

And with that, victory!

And just as I suspected, behind the door we found the old man from earlier, who, yes, is indeed the Rainbow Sage. I then asked him to bestow upon me the power that he bestowed upon Xander, Garon, Sumeragi and... some other guy.

He said no.

…

He then informs me that, lo and behold, I “already have it”!

“Don't you see,” quoth he? “To have even gotten this far you must possess incredible, awe-inspiring power and a brilliant tactical mind already! By passing my test you have not earned the right to gain true power, but you have proven you already have it!”

...Fascinating.

...My rebuttal:

Dakota: Listen, you senile old fool! When was the last time anyone ever said “no” to you!? Your “epic challenge” was an utter joke that anybody with a brain could've solved in five minutes! I barely broke a sweat dealing with this! If you expect me to believe that Garon or big brother Xander were fooled by this for an instant, you've got another thing coming! Now give me the real power you're hiding, or so help me I will EAT YOUR LUNGS!

...He responded by (very nervously) clapping and then congratulated me on passing the “real test”, which was to not give in to vacuous flattery and to properly gauge the scale of what I actually accomplished, before hastily taking my Yato and Takumi's Fujin Yumi and empowering the former with the latter. My Yato is now the Noble Yato. Excellent! Too bad I still can't use it in my current discipline, but I intend to change that soon.

Anyway, now it's time to head back to Nohr and finish this fight!

Alastor15243 · March 12, 2016

Entry 24

Dear War Journal,

Hoo boy did we have a busy couple of days!

First, the obligatory update regarding new buildings and upgrades. Not much has changed, except the lottery and mess hall are now tier 3.

Kana saw the shiny light, went over to investigate, saw the lottery was unmanned, and immediately decided to run the shop for the day. She spun the tumbler and out popped a silver ball, netting me a better silver prize than usual, so there's that. I've never won a gold prize though. Never been lucky with much. Some of my subordinates said I used all my luck up getting born into and raised by two ultra-privileged royal families.

Whatever. I don't need luck to be great.

Of greater concern is that I sat down to spend some quality time with my son Shigure, only to discover that Shigure... didn't... really act... like I'm his father. He seems far more attached to Azura than to me, and when we've had these little treehouse chats, he's never once called me Papa, or Father, or even Dad. So... he's playing favorites.

I immediately consider that this might be because, having retrieved Kana first and with her showing a preference towards my unique royal class, I have been playing favorites myself, the horror. Right, time to remedy that.

First off, Kana has a special weapon, so where's Shigure's? Seeing a golden opportunity between Shigure running the weapon shop and Takumi running the forge, I set about forging Shigure his own special bow.

Getting the materials also nets me not one, but two fantastic opportunities for us to do some good old-fashioned bonding over blood sport in the arena!

And here it is, Shigure's shiny new bow, the Swan Song! Also, please note, the fact that this weapon is made out of forged brass as opposed to the Kanato's steel is not out of being a cheapskate or playing further favoritism. I'm absolutely rolling in money so I could've made it steel if I wanted to. No, it's because they're the most accurate, and with bows' obscene might bonus against flying units rendering the bonus from basing it on steel almost meaningless, not to mention the tendency for quite a few powerful flying units to be sporting bowbreaker, accuracy is by far the most important for a bow user.

I then did some more training and bonding between Hayato and Orochi, and realizing that unlike Orochi, Hayato's strength is actually not terrible, I promoted Hayato into a mageknight called a basara.

Then I checked out my newly upgraded weapon. Man, I might actually want to use this. But I want to keep learning new skills, and there's nothing new worth learning so far in the Hoshido Noble class according to Kana. So...

I decide to spend some quality time with my valuable great knight and apparent childhood friend Silas, in the hopes of striking up enough of a “bond” with him to be able to use a “friendship seal” to use his class. I take step 27 on my path to greatness...

While he learns a very interesting skill that makes me want even more badly to use that friendship seal!

Success!

TREMBLE IN FEAR, MORTALS, AS I HARNESS THE TERRIBLE AND UNKNOWABLE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP!

And like that, I let Gigi take a bit of a break from active duty to play with some of the other wyverns we picked up from the resistance, I get a lovely new pony (who I have named Lady Farvington of Parvingham), and the Yato is mine to use once more! Thankfully this class can also use axes/clubs (not to mention lances/naginata) so Gigirant is still mine to use! Sacred Cow, however, must be retired for the time being. I intend to give it to one of my other magic users. Though I still don't have very many active magic users, with Hayato promoted I feel comfortable leaving a magical class for the time being. Especially since, speaking of Hayato...

Guess who just got hitched? Yes, during that little bonding session, Hayato and Orochi, my two primary magic users, fell in love! Once Hayato decides to man up and plow her (considering how he constantly wants to prove he's an adult, that's probably going to be soon), we'll have another magic user to join the ranks of our-

Hayato: Prince Dakota! Princess Azura! Sorry to barge in on you like this, but... uh...

Dakota: Hayato, what are you doing here when you should be fu-

Azura: Hayato... you're shaking. What's wrong?

Hayato: It's... It's about Orochi. We, uh...

Dakota: Yeeeeeeeess??

Hayato: We, uh... we did it...

Dakota: Good man! But why the hell do you look so miserable!? You should be on top of the world! You just banged Orochi!

Hayato: Uh... Azura... this may be a bit too personal of a question, but, uh... when you and Dakota... did it... and had Kana and Shigure... did you... uh... start vomiting seconds later?

Azura: Oh! Yes, that happened.

Dakota: Oh sweet mother of all the gods did it happen.

Azura: It's just accelerated morning sickness. Not anything to worry about. I mean, no more than usual.

Hayato: Oh thank goodness, I thought it was just Orochi. Alright. Follow-up, just to make sure we're on the same page... did you, uh... keep vomiting?

Azura: I don't understand.

Hayato: Like, uh... uh... look, a fountain of puke, okay? Like, did you start puking up more liquid than your stomach could possibly contain?

Azura: Uh...

Hayato: And did your head start spinning a full 360 degrees? Or did you start spiderwalking? Or speaking in three different pitches at the exact same time, screaming about how my birth parents hated me and tried to feed me to the wolves?

Hour 1

Orochi's current condition is absolutely fascinating. Whatever the hell is going on with her is certainly beyond the mere work of the pedestrian time-space distortions natural to East Dakota. We are dealing with something far more alien, possibly demonic, even eldritch. Orochi has not even bothered to get dressed in the fifteen minutes since her intimacy with Hayato and has been leaping about the room stark naked. Normally this would be titillating, considering the person we're talking about, but it's ruined by the puke caking her face, the fact that she's crawling all over the walls and ceiling like a tarantula, and her head being backwards. I called in Robin, the closest thing to an expert on otherworldly magic that we possess, to give his expert opinion, and here it is: “Holy fuckmother of Naga”. Very informative.

Hour 2

Orochi's condition has, if it's even possible to imagine this, deteriorated since last I spoke. Her mere presence now causes candles, lanterns, torches, and all other flame-based lights to seemingly freeze solid, while all magical light sources, attempts to channel lightning for illumination, and even my beloved daughter's firefly collection, all glow an ominous blood red when brought into her room. Having reduced Hayato to simultaneously bawling and singing ironic children's songs in the fetal position in a corner, Orochi has now redirected her brutal verbal assaults in her three-pitched voice towards whoever happens to be nearby, detailing the brutal and gruesome ways in which we will all inevitably die.

Apparently I'm going to be impaled through the ass by a red hot poker.

Hour 5

Orochi's pregnancy bump is now fully visible, but it is not round or remotely healthy looking. In fact it retains no consistent shape for any length of time as all sorts of shapes seem to be trying to force their way out of her womb, including what appear to be the ghostly faces of people screaming in agony. Ghostly, unearthly sounds now echo from behind the walls all around us, as if the door behind me in this utterly boringly decorated room led not to the rest of East Dakota, but to some wretched, vile netherworld. Azura attempted to exorcise Orochi with her song, with predictable results.

Orochi: FROM WHAT WRETCHED, HELLFIERY ABYSS DO YOU SUMMON THE AUDACITY TO STRESS THE “ERS” IN “WATERS” AND THE “BLE” IN “DOUBLE”!? FOR I ASSURE YOU IT IS NOT MINE!

Hour 9

My family and I just fought off a sudden ambush of flaming beasts from some damned outer realm. The fight seemed to last for hours and yet I feel like I have gained absolutely nothing from the experience. It took the combined effort of all four of us just to keep the wretched things from breaking free into the rest of the castle.

Orochi's skin has now taken on the texture and color of half-cooled magma, and her verbal assaults have subsided only because she no longer seems capable of human speech. She now regularly screeches like a million malig-infused wyverns in unison (a small, comforting improvement to me, and a vast worsening for everyone else). What's more, every orifice in her body now glows with the same blood red light she has forced all light sources to emit for the past few hours. As our most competent resource on all things arcane and otherworldly aside from Robin happens to be the one we're trying to cleanse, all of our inept efforts to purge whatever has taken her over have failed or backfired horribly. Our last, final hope is that whatever has taken her over will simply subside as soon as she delivers... the... the thing that now dwells in her womb. If not, I am at a complete and utter loss as to whether or not it will even be possible to get the old Orochi back.

We may be forced to kill her, War Journal.

Hour 11

Orochi's labor has finally been completed, and her condition seems to be reversing as we speak. The child itself (I had neither the time nor the desire to determine the baby's gender) came out of her hotter than a branding iron and had to be run by yours truly over to the Deeprealm portal area and tossed straight in before she permanently burned both of my hands off. Were you not voice-activated, War Journal, I am quite certain that I would not be able to report any of this right now. Thankfully my hands should heal in a matter of hours. But only time will tell what will become of the child.

Incidentally, the baby's name is Rhajat, a name so utterly alien that it does nothing to help me figure out what gender the child is. Oh, and if you are wondering why two Hoshidan parents gave their child a name that does not remotely conform to the rules of the Hoshidan alphabet (and you aren't, because you're a book)...

...That's because they didn't come up with that name.

The baby did.

...Right. So... I suppose... we should check up on it...? After it stops aging...?

I'll let you know how that turns out.

Update: Not well.

Rhajat: DANCE, PUPPETS! DANCE FOR THE MISTRESS OF BLOOD!

In the time it took her to reach adult size, Rhajat has already become a virtuoso of dark arts that nobody outside of Nohr has ever dared study, she has summoned an army of Nohrian faceless, and now she seems hell-bent on testing them out on whoever next comes her way.

...Which would be us, War Journal.

Robin took one single solitary distant look at Rhajat from across the cemetery and suddenly became more terrified than he had ever been even throughout the entire last half-day ordeal with Orochi's pregnancy. He said nothing for a while, only mouthing the same sentence to himself nonstop that I eventually managed to lip-read as “Naga have mercy it's her why is she here how is she here”. His eyes entered a thousand yard stare for what seemed like minutes on end before he finally spoke aloud:

Robin: Dakota... remind me again... who exactly... is this girl's father...?

I pointed him to Hayato and he almost immediately bent over and puked on the grass in front of him. A few of our soldiers, rendered... excitable... by the day's events, immediately assumed that, in their words, “The Beast has found a new host” and started beating him with sticks when in reality it was just normal, disgusted nausea. He asked what on earth possessed me to pair Orochi up with a little boy, and I simply told him that he was the most magically talented male we had available, and I wanted a strong magical child.

Robin's response: a gasping, half-sarcastic, half despairing “Oh yes, brilliant, that was my logic too”.

...Well then. Looks like we're going to have to fight past a bunch of faceless to get to her, convince her that Hayato's her dad, and bring her onto our side! Only Hayato, Orochi and I are even remotely in favor of this plan. None of the others want anything to do with this and all want to just leave her be, or, in Robin's case, burn the entire cemetery to the ground with her in it. To hell with that. I went to way too much trouble to get this girl, we are not going to make all of my effort for nothing!

The faceless all seem to be divided into groups of roughly four, and each group has a breaker skill or pavise on all of its members. I should bring a diverse variety of weapons to take care of this or there could be trouble.

Begin.

The enemies are surprisingly durable, even in my new beefed out class, so it was fortunate that I went into attack formation for this for most of my party.

I brought Oboro along for some training to maybe get her up to snuff with her husband.

Then I have Kana neutralize the acid before Azura sings her back into action.

Shigure seems quite happy with his shiny new bow.

The remaining faceless all charge us at once, so we'll have to take care of each group quickly...

...Or just tank them with my badass self. That works too.

Step 28 on my path to greatness.

Fun development, War Journal: It seems I have absorbed too much combat brilliance for my mind to focus on all of it simultaneously. I'll have to choose one of these skills to ditch for the time being. I decide on savage blow because it's not quite so useful at the moment. I'd have picked Strength + 2, except that I need it right now to reliably one-round these enemies in all situations.

Yes, it seems that the most practical and simple strategy here is to simply let the brainless fools end themselves against the walls of steel and muscle that are Silas and myself.

...Frankly, considering the buildup, I was expecting a harder challenge from this.

...Silas... look in the mirror.

There! Time to have Hayato talk to Rhajat and sort this whole thing out!

Hayato... barely managed to convince her to stop summoning the things and join us (if only by convincing her she'll have much more fun sowing the seeds of death, destruction and despair by fighting in a war), so now we can clear them out and move on. Anyway, this is how her stats check out. Hello... what's this in her inventory...?

...Iiiiiinteresting...

Rhajat looks like she'll be a great addition to our army! And any dissent regarding her... curious... personality... will certainly go away with time.

...Hopefully.

Silas clears up the rest of the faceless, and we're out of here!

Quick note, War Journal: Rhajat seems... quite... taken with me. Her response to getting her first good look at me was to freeze up and get red-faced from head to toe. Robin was looking on with what I can only describe as horror and groaned “Gods, it begins.”

I'm sure he's overreacting.

Edited December 4, 2016 by Alastor15243

Alastor15243 · March 13, 2016

Oh hey, just a heads up: Once I start the Nohr campaign I'm going to be releasing my castle address if people want to send me stuff. So on the off chance that anybody had an idea for something amusing to send Dakota, here's the advance notice so you can get to work on it :)

Screenshot Dakota's War Journal (Semiblind Fire Emblem Fates RP/LP) (Send me your castles!)

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