By next update, I mean right now
Chapter 5 continued
Turns out Cuan's paranoia was right! Trabant followed them, and now it's a bunch of lance knights with no mobility because of the desert fighting an armada of dragon knights, all wielding Horseslayers (aside from the Hero Lance wielding boss and Trabant himself). Over the next few turns, they will be destroyed one by one, until eventually Ethlin's death allows Trabant to take Altenna hostage, forcing Cuan to surrender and allow himself to be killed. Trabant then flies off with the girl and the Gae Bolg, and leaves his troops behind to come after my army. Pretty brutal stuff. Also, we find out that Reptor is worried Alvis isn't on his side, and Manfloy shows up and seems to think the plan is for Alvis to betray Reptor, but Alvis is adamant about not helping in the resurrection of Loputouso, though he's not opposed to allowing the Lopt Sect to exist without being oppressed. Still got to wonder whose side that guy is really on.
Now we head into the desert. Fury gets to deal with the Meteor mages to help clear a path, and I try to make what progress I can before the Thracians show up to cause trouble. I also discover another little glitch (I have encountered a lot of these lately for some reason) where Sylvia sells the Leg Ring, but retains her boosted movement because she was in a castle and I guess the game counts her remaining movement from what she had before she entered it. Same happened in reverse with Sigurd, he bought the Leg Ring but he did not gain its movement until the next turn.
Sigurd makes it to the next castle even before Ethlin dies and takes out one of the annoying guys with the sleep staffs. Also worth pointing out that the dragon knight boss here, Magorn, is a Harold. Lachesis kills the boss with an Iron Bow, Fury keeps skewering Meteor mages, everyone else follows along with the crowd and prepares to intercept the dragon knights. Sigurd seizes Phinora, and then is informed of the death of the Lenster knights. Not too happy to hear that his sister and best friend were killed. Then we see Reptor preparing to lead his forces into battle, and Alvis' general reveals in private that the plan is...to betray Reptor. In less plot relevant news, Claude/Sylvia is complete. One more to go and we're all set!
For some reason the Thracians change the direction they were going in and the end result is an extra turn before most of them can be killed. The AI really likes to travel in formation when they can, I guess this was caused by them getting off track or something? Anyway, they get killed pretty easily. Azel gets sent home so Dew can give him the money he needs to buy the Magic Ring, everyone who is useful in combat or has staffs goes south to deal with Reptor's crew, and Holyn/Brigid completes itself, meaning my pairings are all done! Now we just have to make the final approach to end the first generation.
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We clasped our hands, our hands in praise of a conquerors right to tyranny