Chapter 21 - A Good Case of Valeria

Quick Summary:

Before all of this nonsense with hellgate and the forbidden power, the Valeria Liberation Army had delivered a serious ass-whooping to the Dark Knights at their HQ. Kachua comes to her senses and takes on her destiny, leading the army to Heigm, where the last obstacle stands: Bishop Branta. Denim and his friends storm the castle, defeating every guard and finally delivering the killing blow (literally) to Branta. During this, the Dark Knight Lans says his goodbyes to Branta, but a series of multi-betrayals occur leaving Branta to his own devices.

With Branta finally gone, Denim is free to pursue the remaining Dark Knights to Eden, where the final battle will occur (not my idea, he says this will be the final battle).

The Army

Not much happened in terms of advancement, since we're super-geared badasses at this point, but I'll post your pictures anyway since it's been a while.

Unit Spotlight - Death Required

Most things we fight with and against are living things, which require some leveling up or recruiting to acquire, but there are different ones too: units which require death to become what you want them to be. We've seen all of them: Lich and Angel Knight.
Angel Knight
We have none of these in our army, but we fought some of them in the last battle. Angel knights are different from a normal unit, where the only way to recruit one is to have a female unit with specific attributes die in battle and be resurrected. If you do it right, the unit comes back as an angel knight. Angel Knights have a couple of special abilities that cost HP, including a heal and an exorcism. I don't usually roll with one in any of my playthroughs, but they're useful in a pinch I guess. They can fly too. Branta summons these in the Heigm Throne room battle.

Lich

We fought two: Nybas and some guy guarding the Ice Temple. Getting a Lich requires a unit with the Ring of the Dead equipped to die in battle, once they're dead they become a Lich. THey have superior attribute growth as far as mages go and are very beefy defensive units as well, with super high physical defense for some reason. They also equip most magic.

Sagar - Berserker - Fire

Kills: 46

Deaths: 1

Achievements: Cock Block, Last Stand, Special Olympics, Fireman

Not much has changed, you're pretty fast, you hit hard enough, you don't die too fast, and you have some versatility. When I don't want you to take damage from a counter-attack, I use FireWave. I haven't seen you block an attack though, even though you have a fairly high defense chance. That's just the name of the game, gotta deal with it.

Velika - Witch - Earth

Kills: 15

Deaths: 4

Achievements: Dragon Charmer, Stone Cold, Close Call, Squishy

Surprise surprise, you're back to petrifying everything on the map. Even Branta's Angel buddies were no match for being turned into actual stone. I'd like to let you know that this tactic has made the game easier than I've ever experienced, which is a good thing because I'm not smashing things in frustration.

Peter - Earth - Terror Knight
Kills: 76

Deaths: 4

Achievements: Boss Blocks, Murderer, Stoner, 3 Quarter Hundo

Not much to say, but you got a kill at some point. Keep slaughtering our enemies.

Rob - Golem - Wind

Kills: 14

Deaths: 5

Achievements: Wall of Heal, Lazarus

You did your civic duty of walking up and letting the enemies hit you in the face. Sometimes you hit back, sometimes I had to heal you because for some reason they gave Golems poor attribute growth. Sometimes I feel like they balanced these numbers against low levels. It's easy to spot where the results start to change in the low levels. You take kind of less damage than everyone else, but the number is still roughly the same percentage of your max health as everyone else.

Jon - Berserker - Water
Kills: 40

Deaths: 2

Achievements: Boss Blocks, Axe Assassin, GrimDarkness

I don't think you're a bad guy, but if you didn't want people to feel that way then maybe you should equip some more light-hearted gear. I kid, I would never victim blame... Just keep swinging your BLOOOOOOOOOOOOD axe at my enemies and it'll be square. By the by, I obtained an Ice Axe during this chapter if you want to use it instead (it does not have as high of an attack attribute as your current axe, but the elemental pairing will make up for that).

Jeff

Kills: 111

Deaths: 4

Achievements: Bitchin, Gnome Sayin, Psychopath, Wicked Sick, Squishy

You bitched at one point after a battle about your morale again, so you're were strictly on enemy softening-up duty. Good news is you won't have to worry about that anymore when we go to eden, because it's all Roslolians. Valeria hates them. Get ready to dehumanize and face to bloodshed once more.

Jay - Tiamat - Wind

Kills: 53

Deaths: 0

Achievements: Charming, Quite Charming, Late Bloomer, Undying

The only battle where you were able to do anything was the Throne Room battle. It was a nice change of pace, because you were able to actually charm targets this time. No kills or level gains, but your performance was good.

Logan - Warlock - Fire
Kills: 34

Deaths: 0

Achievements: Here Comes The Stun, Undying, Wipeout, Battery

Back to business as usual, charging the other casters so they can do what they do best, though in the Throne Room battle you used dominion. All in all, you had standard performance and even gained a level when others did not.

Josh - Dragoon - Earth

Kills: 71

Deaths: 3

Achievements: Early Riser, One Hit Wonder, Full Set, Geared and Confused, Indian Giver Sacrifice

Everything is working out with your setup. No problems here, except that you're still one of the slowest units in the squad. Step it up, do some cardio or something...geez!

Gage - Knight - Fire
Kills: 52

Deaths: 0

Achievements: Close Call, Damsel In Distress, Stone of Shame, Face Blocker, Undying, It's all Ogre

I equipped you with all the ogre pieces and several things happened: You became kind of slow (slower than usual), your physical defense skyrocketed, your physical attack shot through the roof, and your magical defense dropped like it was hot. You'll notice your melee and ranged attack values are both 999 and your defense is 625. This is excellent, because you are no longer threatened by any physical attackers in the game, no bows, no swords, no fists, nada. If you manage to actually hit anyone (your hit rate is abysmal), they die in one shot. It's all ogre for them. However, your magic defense dropped from an average of around 400 to 170, making you extremely vulnerable to magic damage. In fact your status as a liability has not changed at all, considering most battles employ casters. You take significantly more damage from magic than everyone else, like about 50 percent more. Way to suck. I'm still going to deploy you though, because this is an interesting challenge.

Brian - Lizard Man - Water

Kills: 56

Deaths: 3

Achievements: Murder Hobo, Stone of Shame, Aquazard, Damage Dumptruck

Even lizard mans can fight for Valeria. Nothing new to say, just keep swinging that hammer into people.

Dylan - Terror Knight - Wind
Kills: 63

Deaths: 1

Achievements: Stone of Shame, Survivor, Special Olympics

I aint scaring anyone, who am I kidding?

Battles

Battle 1 - Heigm Rear
https://youtu.be/UDqXtt8JU4o

A very short battle. The leader was yet another melee idiot wandering into our line of fire. I ended it quickly because I didn't feel like dealing with Jeff's bitching about killing his own countrymen or something...

Battle 2 - Heigm South
https://youtu.be/nwCqsvZjrXY

One of those lovely maps where the battlefield is basically steps where the enemy gets to start on top. This one was difficult in that multiple long-range fighters start on top of the map and the only ways up are narrow, which is a recipe for disaster. Luckily we made it.

Battle 3 - Heigm Throne
https://youtu.be/QW6RTcuHaLE

A surprisingly difficult battle, mostly because not only are there 6 terror knights, all whom can hit very hard, but also 2 sirens who cast powerful AOE spells. On top of that, Branta sits back healing his allies the whole time. I actually had to use tactics in order to manage this one. When I lured everyone into the proper place and mitigated all of the damage, I had Velika petrify most everyone. Gage killed anyone left alive and everyone else did their part to hold back the tide. However, Branta starts summoning Angel Knights when he runs out of existing allies, all whom get to take a turn right away with their ranged weapons! They also carry orbs, but luckily we were able to act fast enough for them not to use those. In one attempt they did and it destroyed us.

The Story So Far

Kachua and Denim lead the Liberation Army to Heigm to take on the remaining Roslolians and Bishop Branta. Branta sought to rule Valeria as his own, but this required a couple of things: 1) Kachua not being a complete twat. 2) The Dark Knights totally obeying his commands. We all know how it turned out with Kachua. As far as the dark nuts go, they had their own plans and Branta was in no position to boss them around. In fact this gets him into trouble.

While Denim makes his way inside the castle, Lans decides to say his goodbyes to Branta. Barbas, Andoras, and Martim have other plans, so they betray Lans and tie them up in a conference room and take the secret super sword for themselves to unlock Dolgare's treasure. Barbas and co make their escape from the oncoming onslaught and leave Branta to his doom.

Now is NOT the time for tally-whackers! LANS: "Smell ya later" So why don't you kill him?

You got problems if you didn't think he already was YOU BETRAYED THE LAW!!! Volac really has issues with basic social comprehension

A little late to the party...cornholio Veerrryy good, Andy. You're special. You're also a jerk? Stupid? Your penis is small? Stupid face?

During the battle, Branta argues with Denim about the nature of what he was doing and the entire conflict of this whole game. For once, he's right about violence being the thing that gets people where they are in the world, but unfortunately he's on the wrong side. Denim's blood and sacrifice is for the good of the world and a necessity to make change where there are those who us such a thing to subjugate others...or something. Whatever, let's kill him! He's dead. We won!

No shit, Sherlock. Denim really needs to take a chill pill! Yeah, only because you sent wave after wave of men into the blender...

You still have to fight through Eden, jackass... I can happen and is right now, you are dying from multiple puncture wounds and lacerations

Kachua gives a speech about not hurting people of Valeria unless they absolutely have to, it's the Roslolians who are the enemy. Denim announces the last campaign, which is to march onto Eden and stop the Dark knights. "This is the final battle!" - Denim. (he says this)

A great start to a great rule... That always works out for everyone who does it! I told you he said that.

Meanwhile, Kachua and Denim are taken to a room somewhere and see their old buddy-pal, Lans Hamilton! Except now he's borderline retarded and can't do anything except moan when Denim fucks with his music box. The little girl taking care of him gives them the Zenobia sword and that ends the chapter.

Cool story, bro. Once a badass swordsman, now a badass drooler. Very astute, smug girl, swords are often an reflection of the men who wield them

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