The moment she was returned to the tent after meeting the victory condition, she immediately crashed onto the cot, staring into the tent obstructed sky. She felt her body trying to release the contents of her stomach, but there was nothing to let out, and it ended up just resulting in a burning feeling at the back of her throat as she tried to process what had happened.
She liked to read books as a way to pass time. She knew of stories where people are whisked away to other places, given strengths that weren't originally theirs, and allowed to do something meaningful with themselves. Such stories were nice fantasies to escape into, where the world was pleasant, faced with a singular root problem that could be weeded out after much difficulty but solved everything. None of the characters stained their hands with morally reprehensible and questionable decisions, and those who did were often part of that root problem and were 'pulled out' with it... Killed or banished, with none of the weight that such a fate should carry, as their deserving of it was unquestionable.
Why was she so shocked? One of her first thoughts on ending up here had been 'oh no'... Maybe she had deceived herself into thinking that it might not have been as bad as she remembered? It'd been ten years. Or had she believed that it would be different, that all she would have to do was go and slay the monsters with a band of characters cultivated over the course of slaughtering her way through the last bastion of life on this god-forsaken land? That had been the express reason why the game wasn't winnable. At least, in the sense of the ending leaving hope for a future for humanity. In the process of eliminating the monsters - which wasn't even possible in the game, and only the destruction route got to try - you end up stepping on every single last hope the kingdom has of repelling them, just to get to the start line. Politics, the rebellion, personal ties from herself and the mercenaries she takes under her wings - all those culminate in a labyrinth of traps that is impossible to take a single step in without setting off one, and then a chain reaction. Even this first mission, now that she realized what it was, had sealed her fate.
"Captain, we... and... with the report..."
The mission was given by the local lord to clear out the bandits... No, apparently, 'thugs', who were taking residence in a village on his lands. Few of the missions actually had direct flavor text, so there had never been a reason to question the mission itself. By the time it was brought up in specific enough terms to start connecting dots, so many other incidents had occurred that the village slaughter fell to the back of the player's mind, idly wishing for another free experience map like that at most.
But, the two journals she found, maybe cut content that had been removed to prevent bloat or keep the first mission a bit lighter, revealed the identities of those thugs in no unclear terms - villagers who had, under the local lord, suffered, failing to raise enough crops in the past harvest for taxes, and had lost many of their number as they starved. When signs of this growing season not going well either were made clear, instead of leaving themselves to their fate, they joined the rebellion and plotted to join their number in the upcoming assault on the county's capital. For revenge, to wrest the control of the region from a noble who was killing the last few people on this land with insensitive policies, and in hopes of setting up something better for themselves.
That siege was Chapter Six, the first introduction a player had to the game's system of branching maps. The preceding two chapters set the scene and the players in the event, and the next several maps focused on the steps of the siege from whichever side the player chooses.
More importantly than the siege itself though, was the Count himself, Count Cameron... The man's family name had been so disgraced that he pushed to be referred to by his first name, if that were any indication of the sort of cloth he was cut from. And indeed, from what the game allowed the player to see, he was worthy of that heritage. Not only was he the one to pass the main character this first mission for their newly formed company of mercenaries, one that now fits a lot better on the bigger picture of political machinations in the kingdom, but the forces that ambush the merry band in the upcoming chapter are under his employ. Even without the background info of the village having joined the rebellion and those having been the original villagers, it had been well known that the plan of the force in the second chapter was to eliminate whoever came out on top between the villagers and the main character's small band, as both were inconvenient to him. Needless to say, when the choice came to a player on which side to support in the siege, the question was almost always 'how much do I want to screw Cameron over?' rather than 'does Cameron deserve to be overthrown?' or 'will the rebellion do better for this territory?'
"Captain?"
And that was just the start. The introduction to the game. It wasn't like every chapter was full of the traces of the conflict in the kingdom or scheming, some were just normal mercenary contracts and missions, but the game hardly got lighter about the main conflict when it was part of the stage. So, again, what on earth made her expect anything different than this? Even so, -
"Captain, are you feeling alright?" Eckhard's face appeared in her field of view, and she startled in the cot, her arm falling off of it and into the grass as it tried to push her up. "We were thinking about heading back to the County's capital to hand in our report and collect the reward, but if you need to rest..." The boy didn't seem to mind her at all as she pretended she hadn't just been jump scared, simply looking at her with genuine concern.
"Eckhard, you... Can come in here?" Her meandering thoughts had been interrupted by the interesting development of Eckhard coming into the tent of his own initiative, without a game cutscene being involved. Hannah as well had displayed a surprising amount of autonomy, now that she thought about it, even... Even attacking without - no, against - orders, though it had only been the once. The amount of freedom that there was to separate from the game would likely play a key part in the impossible goal of finding a good ending for this world, so she wanted to find some sort of pattern to it, maybe even figure out how to trigger it manually.
"Ah, right! It's against the rules to come in without permission! I'm ver-"
"No, no, Eckhard, you're fine. In fact, please, do come in in the future when you want to talk with me... Just let me know, first." Without game oddities being involved she had no way to see the bright face while he was acting as a part of the preparation menu, and it felt even more lonely. It would be nice to have the company.
"Oh... Oh, alright then." His big doe eyes blinked for a moment before his concern returned, remembering his original line of questioning. "But, Captain, are you alright? We were going to head out soon..." His eyes raked over her lying in the cot, not exactly convinced that she had been trying for a nap with how her body was contorted, the way one of her legs was bent looking terribly painful even if the person herself seemed oblivious.
"Ah... I'm fine, Eckhard." Jean sat up and waved the boy's worries away, even standing up a moment later to show him when he seemed to doubt her, eyes kept on her face. "Really. I was just thinking about some things."
"Well, alright then. Just let me know when everything's ready." Eckhard made his move to leave the tent, but Jean's mouth moved a bit faster than her head did.
"Wait, one moment... Eckhard, I was wondering if we could take a different route to the County capital." She stared at Eckhard with curiosity, wondering where this might go. Maybe she couldn't do it, maybe she needed to give it time, or maybe...
But Eckhard just looked confused, and there was a distinct lack of that feeling she had been hoping for when something in this world just seems to fit in place, so she waved him out after mumbling about how it was nothing, doing her best not to cynically laugh as she saw nothing but bright light outside the tent flaps as he went through. With these two things, it almost felt as though she had been slapped in the face for overstepping her bounds.
With her previous mire of thought disturbed she went on to more productive things, specifically planning for the next chapter. Standing over the table she grabbed things and did her best to make a model of what she remembered of the chapter's map, but to anyone else it probably just looked like she was making a mess of the makeshift desk. To be honest, her imagination was doing some heavy lifting in making the mess of books and trinkets look like a battle map.
The objective of the next map was 'defeat the enemy commanders', likely to make up for the grind that could be killing all 33 enemy units in the previous chapters. On top of having such an easily rushed objective, there was a secondary, hidden win condition of simply surviving five turns. A certain sort of surprise happened at that point that led to all the enemies still alive running, ending the combat and giving a glimpse of the great enemy that had pushed the world so far... She wasn't looking forward to seeing monsters in person, as they had been horrifying enough in game.
Back to the map - though there were two commanders and the objective acknowledges as much, only one of them actually needed to be killed as the other could be recruited. A sort of 'recruit one fight the other' arrangement. Both of them were recruited through telepathy - most units in the game are recruited by the face-to-face talk action, but some could be recruited through the long distance telepathy of the main character or would only respond to it and not even care for a talk action, as the telepathy was a sort of special identifier of the main character. Only a couple of mages at this point in humanity's decline had the already rare talent, so it was an indisputable proof of who she was.
But, as mentioned, the enemy commanders were mutually exclusive. Once one of them was recruited, the other would be unable to be recruited, citing whatever arbitrary reason the writers had come up with. She honestly thought the reasons were - while very in character - pretty weak, but it would be a little odd for the game if you could get through the chapter without fighting. If the objective had been a rout then there still would have been a chapter to play, as the commanders and the two generic units closest to them were the only ones to convert, the rest of the fodder remaining enemies, but maybe that just wasn't in line with what the designers wanted.
Thankfully, it wasn't exactly a difficult choice between the two for her - one of them fit her play style a lot better, and might be unexpectedly even more useful than expected depending on how things turned out on the freedom aspect of this all. Not to mention, it was a lot easier to rush the other commander, so it worked out really well. If she could, she'd recruit both, since she actually really liked both characters, but she didn't expect to be afforded that much freedom.
In terms of overall strategy... Well, there was more than just the two recruitable commanders, obviously. Each of them came with two generic bodyguards that would be recruited alongside them, using the game's rather unique generic randomization system that meant that generics could not only be good but also have a recognizable face and a bit of a personality, the only thing missing being supports and often a couple of stat points. So, in a way, she would actually be getting three units in the next chapter, though two of them were randomized and might not be that good. They would have gone through the first promotion as well, so they'd have the growth penalties appropriate for that... Well, she'd just have to see what she gets, though. Hopefully, they had a good bulk1The combination of a unit's HP and Defense or Resistance stat, essentially how good of a hit or three they can take. I feel like there's a possibility that I'm gonna be using this a decent bit so I'd rather just define the term than not use it and write HP + Defense fifty times. The hope was that they'd act as a meat shield for the newly recruited mage as she picked off a few kills, and when things started looking dicey Hannah could rush the other commander from a nearby forest she'd be hiding in for the defense bonus to make up for the fact that all the enemies other than the commanders on the map were on their first promotion.
Honestly, the experience profits wouldn't be the best considering the time limit and quality over quantity approach for units in the map, but it'd be better than nothing. There wasn't a true way to grind in this game, not even an arena to abuse, so getting every drop of experience in the most efficient way possible did matter.
The biggest issue with this strategy she had came down to the enemy units being at their first promotion. Hannah's weakness that prevented her from being a perfect unit was that she had a terrible luck, both in the base stat and its growth. If she remembered correctly, 2 and 25% respectively. Luck wasn't exactly a terrible stat to have issues with when saving and loading was an option since the main thing it dealt with was cutting down the enemy critical chance, but... There wasn't any saving and loading as far as she had seen. They had been lucky with the Swordsman enemy at the end of the first chapter, but that couldn't keep happening. For the enemy commander she had a pure water from one of the chests hidden in the first chapter to boost Hannah's resistance against magic and make up for her nonexistent base resistance, but that unfortunately wouldn't work against the physical damage of the spears and bows most of the enemy units would be using.
Depending on how the map compared to her memory, she might have Alfonz rescue Wilburn and bring the two up with Hannah to absorb some aggression. Unfortunately, she just didn't remember this map as well as the previous one, including how many enemy units there were. Not to mention, while she had a sort of feeling that Hannah had gotten some levels in defense and HP based on how the last part of the first chapter went, she didn't know the exact numbers and every point would count.
She tried thinking of something a bit less risky, but running around the map until the hidden turn cap passed wasn't the most appealing idea, especially with how that typically resulted in Wilburn getting trapped and peppered to death even through all his defense. Even if she planned on benching him, she didn't relish the idea of getting someone killed. Starting chapter four she would be able to select which units she deployed, so she just needed to keep him and Miur alive until then. And when not going for the turn count passing, the safest bet was to just rush the boss. Even without being concerned about Wilburn, the enemy commander she would recruit runs the risk of dying isolated from the group every turn that passes. Of course, she could wait until the last turn to recruit them, but that would mean missing out on opportunities to get them experience.
Tapping on the table a few times with her index finger, she looked across her partly imaginary map, thought for a moment, and gave up. Her brain couldn't come up with a better strategy, at least for the moment. After the chapter her mind would surely be racing with plans, but that just wasn't happening right now and slamming her head against a brick wall when she couldn't even concretely remember the map and unit placements wasn't going to help. "Eckhard, I'm ready. Let's go."
There was a disorienting feeling after she said the words, and she found herself sitting in a carriage the next moment, eyes dazedly gazing out the window while her eyes in the sky perceived the glinting of metal moving toward them from the distance. The characters had been discussing something, but she didn't really remember this conversation being all that important, so her consciousness tuned out even if her ears caught the words due to the nature of it previously being a dialogue scene. It was only when her telepathic transmission to her allies about their company went through that she started paying attention to reality, everyone getting ready for combat, herself jumping out of the carriage, while Eckhard and the few other unnamed non combatants of the group moved backwards back up the road to avoid being near the fighting that would start soon. Without a word she got in the saddle behind Hannah, and breathed deeply as she reviewed her bird's eye view. Again, it seemed like things were waiting for her to get started.
Before she did, she looked at Hannah, then at the rest of her group, and finally the enemy units ahead. Even if she had already been denied twice in her run in with Eckhard earlier, the third time was the charm, supposedly. "Hannah, how do I tell how strong you, the others, and the enemy are? We're going to need to make sure we're well informed for this." A bit of false reasoning flowed out naturally behind her question, but Hannah didn't seem to care as a response came out of the lady knight. "I was under the impression you did so through one of your spells, milady." There wasn't any feeling of something snapping into place, though. Confused, Jean shook her head, thinking that she could just try in the middle of combat when those spells of hers forcefully autocast themselves, especially since the nature of turns meant she didn't actually have to worry about the time element of doing experimentation like that in a battlefield.
It felt a bit awkward last time when she had accidentally started the battle and been jammed into the pre-battle dialogue by an order she had intended to be followed immediately, so this time she decided to start things with a simple, auditory, "Let's go."
Snow Emblem: Gloomy Dawn
Kek
Lol, tempting! No, actually, really, might change it to Gloomy Dusk for the full 360* but I'll keep that one in mind...
@HopelessRomantic literally the opposite of Radiant Dawn, noice
Not dead; just depressed. Even if it takes me months I'll be posting new chapters to this book, I made a promise with myself that I'd finish this one