Fire Emblem: Last of the Manakete

EDIT: Creative use of wings win again. They are something that makes Ryza special even among manakete, so not a bad choice.

Hate the Monster!
Fight the Monster!
Purge the Monster!
-Battle cry of the Army of Cleansing

The lingering shame and anger of the baron's visit haunts you for the rest of the day. It's one thing to hear occasionally senseless and hurtful comments from people you happen to be around, especially when there are others who immediately leap to your defense. It's another for someone to seek you out specifically to try and make you feel pain.

What's worse, he's supposed to be one of your friends! Just how much worse will the Imperials be when they start coming by to be pains in the tail?

Therefore, you're still grumpy when you wake up the next morning, long before you usually do. It's still a bit dark outside, though that could be due to the overcast weather. Feeling tired and frustrated, you don't wake anyone as you crawl out of the little tent Belle and Kelton had helped you set up. You decide, out of the blue, that you want to go to look around Mother's office. You'd originally planned to go down past the ward with everyone to see just how bad the monster infestation is, and you can still do that, but you just want to bask in the memories of family for a while longer.

One of the sentries notices you as you start making your way deeper, and you can tell he's debating with himself between going after you, waking one of your friends to go, or just leaving you be. In the end, he seems to settle on the last option, as he simply nods at you. You wave back as you make your way into the darkness, heading towards Mother's office.

As your footsteps echo through the dark halls, relying on your dark vision to guide you, you wonder just what you're going to do with this place. It's not safe to stay here right now, not with the Empire being… Empirey. Besides, you'd promised to be Agrithe's Head Mage for a while. You'll probably mostly stay with Artemis and her family for a century, maybe a century and a half. That'll give you the chance to get fully grown, so people won't keep treating you like a child. Then, once you're grown up and Artemis has… moved on, you'll be able to move here permanently. That will also give you time to visit and start clearing up the place without having to do it all at once.

You continue to mull over your options, and before you know it you're standing in front of the door to Mother's office. This is deeper in the mountain, and as you've walked you've noticed the signs of damage… changing. Rather than the constant, low-level degradation of years and years of minor damage, probably done by humans, more and more you're seeing major signs. Pillars shattered from what looks like a single mighty tail-blow, entire walls defaced by the raking of claws. It seems the ancient manakete who killed your parents had not been satisfied with merely blood.

Or maybe they were looking for you? You shiver: with the amount of damage they'd been doing, if they'd gone by the wall to your shrine… maybe the spirit Father had tasked with protecting you had distracted them, prevented them from going that way?

"Thank you," you say to the air, not entirely sure if you're talking to Father or to the spirit.

Shaking your head after a long moment of silence, you look at the remains of the door laying against the wall across from the door. Steeling yourself, you step over the threshold and into the office, one that had been used by countless manakete matriarchs and patriarchs throughout the eons.

It's… well, it's a mess. It barely looks like a room anymore, the walls are so torn and ruined. Frowning, you look around, this is more than just a dragon-form having a tiff. The manakete had been searching for something, something they thought Mother had hidden here. That was the only logical explanation for the amount of destruction.

Had they been looking for you? Had they known that Father and Mother had a child, and wanted to kill your entire tribe? Or had there been something else they wanted…

You slowly walk around the room, poking at the walls. Mother had hidden the picture that was now carefully tucked into your backpack back at camp, so you know she's good at that sort of thing… but no matter how you look, the damage is just too severe. If any disguised space was tucked into a wall, they would have found it. Same with the massive stone desk, which had been ripped from the ground it had been ritually-molded out of and thrown against another wall, shattering both.

Signing, you slump down on a loose boulder, looking around. Whatever they wanted, they probably found it. Dropping your head back against the wall, you stare at the ceiling, tracing the faint, flakey remains of an old mural depicting a flying Yellow dragon-form against the sky, holding what looks like the remains of a deer in its claws. Mother had always enjoyed hunting, enjoyed providing for her family, and she'd promised to teach you someday…

'You'd be surprised just how rarely people look up,' the memory of Mother's voice seems almost to whisper in your ear.

Frowning, you peer closer at the deer. Is it just you, or does it look… distorted… Flapping your wings, you carefully fly up to look closer.

It is! It juts out from the rest of the mural. Grinning, you carefully dig your fingers into a thin groove you can see, which would probably have been hidden by the paint when the mural was whole. After a moment of careful probing, you find a catch.

It takes a while, the locking mechanism has clearly degraded over time, but just when you're about to go find Belle and see if she can figure it out, you're finally able to tug the catch enough that it drops open, causing a narrow cleft to swing down, nearly bonking you on the head. Shifting, you look inside.

There are scrolls in here, and unlike the vast majority of the writing you've seen, they seem mostly intact. Carefully pulling one out, you unroll it to see what looks like a letter. Mother must have stored important things here for later reference.

Aithusa,

Things have been getting even more tense over here at Ascension Peak. The Lords have been arguing in circles for more than a year now. Shyrlonay's got his block of supporters, and no matter how hard everyone else argues that he's not going to win they just dig their talons in and refuse to budge. They keep going on about what a great Arbiter his father was, and how he'll do just as good a job. I fear they will never accept anyone else, and no matter what he says in public it's clear he's egging them on behind the scenes.

You frown as you float down to sit on the remains of the desk. Ascension Peak… you know that name from somewhere, but you can't put your finger on it… Shaking your head, you keep reading.

We're doing our best, though, and we are making some progress. I was able to talk High Lady Quianlonga into backing Vokunfron, even though she still insists she's not officially running. She's young, but she's steady, rational, and she's willing to listen to everyone before making a judgement. Given a few centuries, she'll be an amazing Arbiter. In the moment, she'll also be a good compromise candidate. Just about everyone likes her, and she's even friends with Shyrlonay. If anyone can get him to back down, it'll be her.

I wish you could be here, almost as much as I'm sure you're wishing you could be here. Sadly, we both know your place is at Kepesk-Okar. The baby will be coming soon-

Your eyes widen… this letter must be about a hundred years old… well, one thousand one hundred years old. From the time when Mother was pregnant with you.

-and the last thing you need right now is more stress. I almost didn't write, but I know you'll worry if you don't hear anything, and I want you to be getting some rest, not pacing around fretting over things you can't control. Mother willing, we'll see this election through, and we'll have a new Arbiter before little Ryza or Rykan comes into the world.

Rykan? Would that have been your name had you been a boy? You scrunch up your face, you like being Ryza.

Keep the faith, cousin, and take care of yourself first and foremost. Aunt Cumnimba would have wanted it that way, you know that. Oh, and tell Faf from me to get his head out of his rocks long enough to check on you every now and then, and if my niece or nephew is born before I get back let me know right away.

Don't worry, cousin, we'll see this through.

Love,

Skyrala

That name… you faintly remember, from your youngest years, another older manakete living with you and Father and Mother… that must have been her, your aunt. She'd disappeared when you'd been about fifteen, and Mother and Father had never really spoken of her again.

Had she been another victim of Shyrlonay?

Frowning, you flap back up to the cubby and start pulling out scrolls. You don't have time to read them right now, but you cannot let these get lost. You need to figure out what happened back then: you can't help but feel that there is some connection between Shyrlonay's attack on your home and the Empire's killing of everyone else. If you're ever going to figure out how to convince humans they don't have to be scared of you, you have to know what happened back then.

It takes a while to figure out how you can get everything back: you end up using your cloak as an impromptu bag. Once you're satisfied that you got everything, you heave the heavy bundle over your shoulder with and oof and start making your way back towards the camp.

As you walk, careful not to let any of the letters fall out and get lost, you hear the faint echoes of voices from up ahead. Slowing down, you listen in.

"-hope she's alright," Claire's voice says. You cock your head: you'd have thought she'd go back to the cart when she woke up.

Kelton's grunt reaches your ears. "I'm sure she is," he says. "Just wish she'd have let someone know where she was wandering off to. Sometimes I think she forgets not everyone can see in the dark or find their way around this place."

In fact, you had not forgotten those things. You just wanted to have some time to think for a bit. You begin forward again, only to stop as Claire speaks up.

"Kelton-"

"Come on," the boy cuts in. "Let's go find her." You faintly hear approaching metal boots, only for the steps to stop as Claire presses on.

"I'm sorry, Kelton,"

A long moment of silence fills the halls as you hold your breath. Finally, Kelton answers coolly. "You said that before," he says. "Doesn't change the fact that you used me. Used me against the people I was trying to protect."

The female soldier sighs. "Kelton, I know that lying to you was wrong, but I was trying to protect you. I didn't want you to get caught up in that clusterfuck of a situation any more than you already were."

"I didn't ask you to protect me!" Kelton snaps. Another tense silence stretches for a few seconds before Kelton continues. "When were you planning on telling me the truth? After you tricked me into-"

"As I recall, you invited yourself along for that suicide mission, over my repeated and strenuous objections!" Claire cuts in.

"I couldn't just leave yo-… Lady Artemis. She saved my sister, I had to go-"

"She never asked you to protect her, nor did I," Claire shoots back. You can imagine the two glaring at each other before Claire sighs and continues in a softer voice. "Sometimes, we do the best we can with the hand we're dealt. I had to support Countess Mantrae, that's what it means to be a woman-at-arms. We don't have the luxury to pick and choose which orders to follow. I'm sorry you got caught up in everything, but I really did try to get you out of it."

"Why?" Kelton's voice is tired. "Why did you care so much? We'd just met."

A long pause causes you to instinctively hold your breath. "I… I wasn't that different than you, when I first joined up," Claire finally answers. "Determined to be more than just another servant girl, determined to protect everyone." She chuckles darkly. "Let's just say that I found out pretty fast that real life isn't a story and leave it at that."

"Michael?" Kelton asks, his voice somehow going even more icy.

Claire sighs. "No, nothing specific, just… just life," she trails off. "I wasn't depressed or anything, I just… had to modify my expectation." Her voice softens. "And then you show up. You walk into a situation that people have been trying to fix for ages, but we never had enough evidence or sway to make right, and you solve it. You don't plan. You don't even seem to think about it much, you just walk up, rally those recruits, and punch Michael in the face. Do you have any idea how long I'd wanted to do that?!"

"…I think it was a little more complicated than that…" Kelton says.

Claire laughs quietly. "I guess I just didn't want you to lose that. Maybe I didn't go about it the right way, and it sure didn't work, but I was trying to help."

Unable to resist, you tiptoe to the corner and peek around. Kelton and Claire are staring at each other. Your friend's face is flickering through emotions almost too fast to track. After a few moments, Claire sighs. "Look, I get that you're mad. Honestly, you have a right be. I just wanted to… to clear the air, I guess." With that, she turns and walks away. "Come on, let's go find Ryza."

"Claire-" Kelton starts, causing the woman to turn. "I… I get that you were trying to help. It's just…" he sighs. "I don't know. I don't know how I feel. I'm mad, but I don't want to be mad. I just don't know."

Claire swallows. "You're entitled to your feelings," she says quietly, before turning and walking away before Kelton can formulate a response. Slowly, your friend slumps against the wall with a slow, unsteady breath, running a hand over his face.

Slowly, you make your way over to him and pat him on the side. "She does really seem sorry, Kelton," you say softly as he starts at your touch.

"How long have you been listening?" he asks.

"For most of it," you say. "Sorry I wandered off, I just needed to look for some stuff." You hold up your cloak. "I found some of it."

Kelton forces himself to smile. "Good, good," he says.

The pair of you stand in silence for a long moment before you continue. "Kelton… if you don't want to be mad, nobody's making you be mad."

"It's not that simple, kid," Kelton says. "Not everyone's got an alternate personality to shove their feelings off onto."

You frown. "That's not how dragons work," you say. "I feel all my emotions; it'd be really bad if I didn't. I just… am careful about how I go about feeling them." Your eyes light up. "Hey, you should read about The Path, or at least I should read it too you. Nothing I've seen so far is something humans couldn't do as well, and being able to control your emotions is a good thing, right?"

Kelton blinks before slowly grinning. "I get the feeling that your answer to just about every problem is to read something," he says, ruffling your hair. "But who knows, maybe you're right." He reaches down and carefully picks up your cloak/bag. "Here, let me get that for you, and let's get back to the others. I'm curious about what the monsters are hiding down below."

You swallow. "Right," you say. "Let's get back to the others; they won't be happy if we go poking around without them."

As the pair of you head back, you glance up at Kelton to see a thoughtful look on his face. When you reach the camp site and you go to put your scrolls away, you see him taking a deep breath and heading towards Claire.

Hopefully, the pair of them have finally gotten over their problems, and they can be happy again.

Kelton and Claire: Support Rank B

---

About half an hour later, you, Kelton, Belle, Axton, Lancel, Claire and Sir Octavio are gathered at the top of the stairs leading down below. "There are three areas I'd like to take a look at," you say, creating a rough map out of lightning to point at. It's not nearly as detailed as the ones you'd made for the upper floors, since you hadn't spent as much time down there. "First, there's the Deep Library, where my tribe kept all the scrolls that weren't used very often. I haven't had time to look at the main one up here, but from how ruined everything else has been…" You grimace. "Well, I think we're going to have more luck down there. As bad as monsters are, from what I remember they don't go out of their way to destroy scrolls."

Sir Octavio glances at the map, frowning. "At least it seems to be relatively close," he says.

You nod. "It is, which also means that we'll have a chance to see just how bad things are down there. If there are entire swarms of monsters, we'll write this off, but if we can get through… well, maybe I can find something that will help later." Pointing further on, you hesitate for a moment before continuing. "I'd… also like to visit the crypts. That's where my ancestors are buried. If nothing else, I'd like… I'd like to make sure that nothing bad has happened to them. That they're still at peace."

"That could be dangerous," Belle says warily. "Lots of monsters are the dead come back to life. Wouldn't that happen to your family's bodies as well?"

"I've never heard of anything like that happening before," you say. "But again, if we run into problems, we can just leave. I don't want anyone dying for me, okay?" Everyone nods. "After that… well, there's another set of stairs that leads deeper into the mountain. I've never been down there, and so we won't be going so that we don't get lost, but maybe there's something we can do. It's the most speculative thing I'm trying to do, so if we don't get to it we don't get to it, but if we could make this lower area safe…" you swallow. "That would… make my life a lot easier in the future."

Kelton pats you on the shoulder. "Sounds like fun," he says. "All we've seen from down there is a bunch of revenants. Those brain-gobblers won't be a problem."

"Don't get cocky," Axton says. "I've fought a few monsters from the Eternal Forest, and they may not be smart, but they are relentless. Besides, there may yet be worse things down there than revenants."

"Sure thing, Dad," Belle says snarkily.

Quickly, you speak up as Axton's eyes narrow dangerously. "Okay, no arguing with each other, we're all friends here!" you say soothingly. "So Belle and I will go first, we can see the best in the dark, and Kelton and Claire will be right behind us, then Axton, you and Lancel go next with your bows, and that leaves you at the back Sir Octavio. Everyone okay with that?"

The cavalier doesn't look very happy, but he nods along with the others. "I suppose my armor is the strongest, so if the fell fiends try to attack us from behind I will hold them off," he says, drawing his sword.

"Hopefully, it won't come to that," you say. "Alright, if we're all ready, let's go."

As the seven of you walk down the stairs past the wards, you feel as if the temperature is dropping noticeably. You're not sure if it's the change in depth, some sort of magical feedback, or just your own fears, but you pull your cloak tighter around yourself as you look around warily.

The halls are… strange, down here. It was always a little rougher than the main living area, more prone to having rough edges, bare walls and harsh corners. Now… well, it's actually not as ruined as above. The fact that there had never been decorations made the lack less jarring, but as you looked closer you could see long, jagged claw marks scratched randomly along the walls. Unlike the pick-axe marks above, these claw marks seem… unfocused. As if the monsters had just been randomly scratching at the walls.

More than that, though, is the smell. Above, you had been surrounded by the scent of dust, dirt and debris. In the darkness… you can't really describe it. There is a lingering stench of death on the air, that's real enough, but more than that there's just a… darkness. A foul wrongness that you've never felt before, but that makes you instinctively want to turn tail and run back to the light where it's safe.

However, you swallow and force yourself to keep going. This is your home; it belongs to you. It doesn't belong to these monsters, and you're going to prove it!

Thankfully, it seems that your nightmares of endless swarms of monsters lurking just beyond the protective wards are overly pessimistic. On the short but tense trip to the Deep Library, you and the group only run across one revenant, and it looks like it's all but falling apart already. A single blast of White magic sends it to the ground, the evil magic animating it flayed away to make the body dead again as it should have stayed.

"Nice one," Kelton says. "Can you make fireballs?"

"Not yet," you say. "Maybe after I'm done with this level of White magic, I'll get started on my Red magic."

Belle shushes you. "Let's save the back-slapping until we're out of here," she hisses. "We're almost there."

A minute later, you look up at the massive doors to the Deep Library. Thankfully, they're already open, or at least one of them is. Even if you could have forced the gigantic stone doors open, it would have made a Mother-waking racket which surely would have drawn every monster in the mountain to you. "When you said library," Lancel says. "I wasn't expecting it to be quite this… big…"

"Didn't I tell you that I got lost in it a few times as a child?" you say, creeping forward and peeking around the door. "It's the repository of knowledge for generations of manakete; of course it's going to be big." As you look in, you breath out a soft sigh as don't see any immediate monsters. Carefully sneaking in, you sidle to the edge of the balcony overlooking the library proper and look around.

The massive stone shelves seem mostly intact, thank the Mother, and you can see a few scrolls even from where you're crouching. Some have been toppled, either by monsters or by time, but most still seem to be standing. Hopefully, you'll find something to be worth the risk of coming down here.

You nearly jump out of your skin as Belle puts a hand on your shoulder. "Monsters," she breaths. "Left long."

Turning carefully, you look in the direction she's pointing and see a group of four revenants shuffling around, seemingly at random. One looks a bit bigger and more put-together than the others, but the others don't look too tough.

Sadly, as the pair of you keep looking, you spot a few more revenants. Two pairs of them, to be exact, spread out among the shelves. Worse, you swear you see something… else, flitting through the darkness near the back of the library. Not a revenant, not a body, something… else.

Silently, the two of you move back to join the others. "Well, it seems we've got a camp of monsters in there," Belle says. "And if there are eight of the bas-things, then there're probably more hiding among the shelves. Hopefully not too many, we did have a good vantage, but definitely more."

"We also can't discount the possibility of reinforcements coming from out here when the fighting starts either," Lancel says warily. "I thought I heard something moving further down the corridor."

The seven of you look at each other. You want to get in there, you want to recover some of your lost legacy, but you want to do it safely. "Alright," you say finally. "Let's come up with a plan. We're all smart, if we put our heads together we'll figure something out."


Pre-Battle Phase:

Your Forces:
Ryza (Level 3, Thunder's Cry / Mother's Hymn)
Kelton (Level 3, Steel Lance, Javelin)
Belle (Level 5, Iron Sword)
Axton (Level 2, Iron Bow, Iron Dagger)
Lancel (Level 2, Iron Bow, Iron Dagger)
Claire (Level 3, Steel Lance, Javelin)
Sir Octavio (Level 4, Steel Sword, Iron Lance)
Items:
Dark Elixir
Light Elixir

Enemy Force:
Group 1: 4 Revenants (Levels 4, 2, 2, 1)
Group 2: 2 Revenants (Levels 4, 2)
Group 3: 2 Revenants (Level 4, 2)
Group 4: Unknown (Flying, far in the back of the library)
Unknown number of other groups hidden among the shelves.

Battlefield:
A massive room, filled with large stone scroll-shelves. Some have collapsed on themselves, blocking off certain areas, but most are standing. Your party starts on a stone balcony with two sets of stairs leading down into the library. The ceiling is high enough to allow for flight.

Primary Objective: Clear the Room

Secondary Objectives
[] Write In (Plan)

Strategy
[] Write In (Plan)


AN: The front page should be up to date with the character details, but if I forgot anything please let me know.

Good luck, and remember, the enemies will react to what you do, so keep that in mind when you're planning.