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Chapter 7 - No Rime or Reason


Quick Summary
We head to Fort Bodo to meet the leader of the Valerian Liberation Front, Selye. On the way we destroy a Wizard who thought killing us would save his daughter, but he was dead wrong. At Bodo we meet Selye, who plans to assassinate the major leaders in the war. Turns out Gargastan has just lost and she's moving on in to clean up. We go to Rime to meet Lans, but are interrupted once again by an enemy: Zapan. The fight is interrupted by the Dark Knights attacking Rime for a reason, Lans duels the physically strongest Dark Knight Barbas and Guildus cock blocks Dark Knight Martym from Denim at the cost of his own something or other. Zapan kidnaps Kachua and Denim pursues.

The Army
Everyone is leveled up to 13 now. We need it, because the enemy  packs a mean punch now. I did not do this for the last two battles, but from now on I'm going to make sure everyone is as evenly repped as possible in all chapter battles.

Unit Spotlight - Golem - If only they were this good

Golems are L-Sized units, like Dragons and Griffons. The difference between them is that the Golem is very tough, much tougher than the rest at the expense of any offensive capability whatsoever. In fact, the Golem does not have a special attack like the rest of the monsters, they can't even be equipped with weapons. Golems perform the hardblow melee attack, which is considered an unarmed attack and is heavily penalized. They have substantially less health than other L-Sizes, but there aren't many ways to do any damage to them. Poison and other magic are the most effective ways to deal with them. They're mediocre at best, but Rob insisted on being a Golem, so I'm rolling with it. I'll make sure he grabs as many tarot cards as possible.


Sagar - Berserker - Fire
HP 157 MP 29 STR 92 VIT 89 INT 73 MEN 89 AGI 77 DEX 88 LUK 50
Well your not-endangered status has changed back to normal, because the last battle was a frantic mess of emergency healing. You still do respectable damage and can block a hit when necessary. I just need to keep a cure item on you whenever you're deployed.

Jay - Octopus/Tiamat - Water - White Dragon
HP 177 MP 0 STR 145 VIT 90 INT 77 MEN 113 AGI 65 DEX 56 LUK 50
You'd be a black dragon, but that requires 30 kills, which you certainly don't have. However, the next tier inherits whichever ability the dragon had before, so you're still zapping mofos. I wasn't even intending you to be this good; I forgot about the Thunder Dragon's breath, which stuns targets fairly reliably.  You're a great tank, damage dealer, and "crowd" control. 


Jon - Berserker - Water
HP 156 MP 40 STR 85 VIT 79 INT 77 MEN 90 AGI 89 DEX 94 LUK 50
Not much to report, because you haven't participated in any of the battles this chapter. I'll do a better job of repping everyone per chapter.

Josh - Dragoon - Earth - Currently Beast Tamer

HP 150 MP 28 STR 84 VIT 84 INT 76 MEN 86 AGI 97 DEX 95 LUK 53
Did not get to do much with you in the first battle and you weren't deployed in the second battle. We'll have something next chapter.

Peter - Terror Knight -  Earth - Currently Beast Tamer
HP 153 MP 30 STR 81 VIT 83 INT 75 MEN 81 AGI 98 DEX 91 LUK 50
Almost there, stay on target. I'm liking this whole whip thing, it's nice. You're a little more squishy than I'd like you to be, but I also need you to be quick, so you're still clad in leather.

Rob - Golem - Wind
HP 102 MP 0 STR 139 VIT 106 INT 60 MEN 95 AGI 47 DEX 50 LUK 50
If your HP weren't abysmal, I'd rank you above Jay in terms of tanking ability. As it stands, you don't take a lot of damage, but you lack a special skill. You were essential in blocking a major lane in the last battle, so I  was okay with having to heal you a bunch.

Brian - Lizard Man - Water
HP 165 MP 4 STR 101 VIT 86 INT 57 MEN 84 AGI 91 DEX 76 LUK 50
Your tanking ability has decreased, but that was never your intended role. You still do respectable damage though. In Rime you provided a much needed barrier between the enemy leader and our squishy mages.

Kay - Witch - Earth
HP 143 MP 50 STR 77 VIT 71 INT 84 MEN 88 AGI 88 DEX 94 LUK 50
Believe it or not I actually have been using all three of your spells. Clear was especially necessary in the second battle because of all the poison being thrown around. I'm going to call you the dragon charmer because you successfully charmed 3 of 4 enemy dragons.

Logan - Warlock - Fire - Currently Exorcist
HP 142 MP 64 STR 75 VIT 77 INT 100 MEN 85 AGI 73 DEX 86 LUK 49
If you weren't deployed in the last battle, it would have gone south quickly. I'm going to need to invest in healing items soon before you become a warlock.

Gage - Knight - Fire
HP 146 MP 32 STR 92 VIT 76 INT 77 MEN 82 AGI 89 DEX 88 LUK 50
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it's been uneventful for you, because of the way the maps were laid out. It was almost critical in the first battle, but you weren't in any real danger.

Dylan - Terror Knight - Wind - Beast Tamer
HP 160 MP 32 STR 86 VIT 81 INT 73 MEN 85 AGI 89 DEX 87 LUK 50
Beast tamers are NOT good with claws. Also my attribute growth has been bad, so it's time to beast tame again.

Battle Report

Battle 1 - Griate City
Deployed: Josh, Dylan, Peter, Velika, Logan, Jay, Jorshe, Gage, Brian
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WVS4h7Bii0

This map sucks: you start in what is basically a pit and there is only one good way to get up to the enemy. The enemy also employs 2 dragons, an archer, a wizard, and a couple of knights. There are also a total of 4 npc guests to work around,  can you feel the killsteal power? Anyway, we start the battle working our way up the only flight of stairs that leads us to the enemy, Byan the Wizard charges straight ahead and gets himself shot with an arrow, which Logan begrudgingly heals. Dylan puts the poison dragon to sleep, our L-size guys make their way slowly up.

The enemy fire dragon gets a taste of the ENTIRE ARMY, his health whittled down to below 20, death imminent. Runbird, the knight, can't resist the charms of Velika and suddenly gets the urge to stab his commanding officer in the back. Byan does the surprisingly logical thing and nukes an enemy group with Acid, but steals the kill on the fire dragon. Dylan charges in, but can't quite do enough damage to the Earth Dragon and ends up eating an Incubus and falling asleep. Gage tanks a couple of hits from the fire dragon and the archer, actually blocking an attack for once. Peter gets a kill on the other knight. Byan is unable to resist blowing up the enemy grouping and ends up not only stealing another kill, but ends the battle prematurely. Bah! Thanks to good tactics, we end the battle with no close calls.

Battle 2 - Rime
Deployed: Ashley, Dylan, Peter, Velika, Logan, Jay, Jorshe, Sagar, Brian
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX_Tty8WUSQ I rendered this one at 200% speed because of length. IF you want to see it at normal speed, set the playback speed to .5

This is it: our first real struggle. We have 2 Lizard Men, 2 Witches, 2 Dragons, 2 Hawk Men, and one really nasty Berserker. The map starts the player in a small platform surrounded by water, higher platforms and only one way out. Following that are 2 narrow pathways. Denim and Kachua start out in the open, surrounded by the enemy army for story reasons - they're hilariously out-gunned and their allies are far behind. A tough mission for sure. No matter how you build Denim, he won't be able to fight head to head if he's level appropriate, so he must retreat. Most enemies in this battle hit hard and - if not managed correctly - will destroy us. The two hawk men with bows are the largest threat; they can fly and their shots can kill most of us in 3 hits and our weaker characters in 2. Kachua proves that true by taking 2 arrows and uses her escape stone, leaving us with only one healer. Everyone else makes their way up to the 2 major bottleneck areas.

Most of this battle consists of managing enemies in the lanes and making sure the hawk men don't snipe our squishier guys to death - and it would be a struggle if not for the enemy making a weird decision: most of the bruisers, including Zapan decide to go left. He and a lizard man go down into the pit, trying to avoid a slug-fest with Jorshe. Brian, Peter, and Sagar keep Zapan and his cronies blocked in and busy while Dylan, Ashley, and Jay knock out the weaklings out in the open area one-by-one. Jorshe blocks the dragons from coming in to join their comrades, while Velika charms them multiple times. While the enemy is still at full force, the battle is a frantic mess of healing and making tough choices about whether or not to risk counter-attacks. Once the hawk men are dead and the big threats contained, it was just a matter of whittling the rest down. I allow Jay to get some kills before we take care of Zapan.

Jay's breath attack stuns his prey and keeps them locked in place, with the additional upside of making the target unable to evade attacks. Velika casts Clear and removes all poison from anyone who managed to get hit with it. Once all the enemies are dead, we surround Zapan, then Ashley comes in for a finishing shot. Zapan is done for, but before we can finish him we're interrupted by a story event!

The Story So Far
After rescuing Forcas, Byan, and Sisteena - in that order, all asking us to rescue the next person in line - Denim is requested to take the three knuckleheads to Fort Bodo to meet their leader Selye. Kachua is not having any of this, but she's like that crazy sister no one wants to listen to, so we head to Fort Bodo!

On our way we encounter a Wizard and his merry men in Griate City. Griate City...where have I heard of that before? Oh yeah, that's the title of our hero: The Hero of Griate! I don't remember anything of note happening here... whatever. The Wizard wants the bounty on Denim's head, but our kill-stealing fuck-tard companions will have none of this and blow through them like a thresher through small children. He says something about saving his daughter, but the joke's on him: he's dead! Hahahaha! What a great joke!

At Fort Bodo we meet the illustrious leader of the Valerian Liberation Front, Selye! She is Sisteena's sister; they have 2 other sisters, but you won't meet them for a while. They are also fronting crappy, nervous soldiers. Inside, Selye treats us with the utmost hostility a sane leader can. Sisteena lets us in on her plan: to assassinate the leaders of Walsta and Bacrum. Selye even invites Kachua and Denim to participate just seconds after chewing out Sisteena for involving interlopers. A messenger comes in letting us know that Gargastan has fallen and Barbatos executed, which Selye approves of and orders her soldiers to carry out her plan. Sisteena freaks out and we recruit her into our army, for true peace!

We head to Rime and are greeted by Zapan again, he set this little trap up for us as a welcoming party! I love parties. We beat him up a bit and are interrupted by something sinister: the Dark Knights and their templars are attacking, killing everyone! Oh no! Knight Lans confronts Dark Knight Barbas, who is entirely too happy to see him and they begin their fateful duel. In the confusion, Zapan kidnaps Kachua and taunts Denim to go to Armorika to rescue her. Meanwhile we are almost punked by Dark Knight Martym, but Guildus comes to the rescue. It is implied that Guildus loses this match, even though he shouldn't have.

Now we have to rescue Kachua, for fuck's sake!

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