It’s a little late, but it’s time for another update on how things are going in Fire Emblem Awakening. This week, we have a death, a betrayal, and a reveal that absolutely nobody could have ever seen coming. But before all that, we need to go over some numbers. My current play time is about six and a half hours, Ivan Ooze is level 11, and I’m currently on chapter 10.

As we begin this week, Chrom has decided that we need to return to Regna Ferox to request additional help against Plegia. As he tells this to Ivan, Luci-er-Marth, shows up. She tells us that the Exalt’s life is in danger and that she knows this because she’s from the future. To prove this, she prevents an assassin who was apparently hiding in some bushes from taking out Chrom. In the skirmish, Marth’s mask is broken, revealing that he is actually a woman! I… I can’t believe it. I never could have seen that happening.

……………..

Since Chrom believes Marth, we head out to defend the Exalt. It turns out the attacker is Validar, that bad guy from the first scene in the game. He’s joined by a bunch of other bad guys, including Gaius, a ninja mercenary. I have Chrom talk to him, and he accidentally drops some candy that he had in his pocket. Apparently, Gaius really likes candy and will happily switch sides if we give it to him. So we do.

Also joining us is Panne, some kind of beast-woman who can transform into a giant rabbit. Although she seems to hate all humans, Marth tells us that she’s good and to just trust her on this one. Overall, this fight isn’t too bad. The main objective is to prevent the bad guys from killing Emmeryn, who is hanging out in a room towards the back of the map. After fighting a bunch of dude, Validar is defeated and he sneaks out to fight another day.

Afterwards, a cutscene plays featuring Validar in some kind of dark space. He’s reporting his failed attempt at killing the exalt to his superior, who reveals himself to be Grima, the Fell Dragon. Hey, I remember Grima from the backstory of the world of mirages from Tokyo Mirage Sessions! Neat!

So, now that we know that the exalt is being targeted, it’s decided that we need to get her to safety. Along the way, we’re suddenly ambushed by a group of bad guys. Hierach, this priest dude that obviously never struck me as particularly important since I haven’t mentioned him before, runs over to the baddies and reveals that he sold us out in exchange for his safety. Doesn’t matter though, because the bad guys kill him anyway. Then we fight.

Part way through the battle, a pegasus knight named Cordelia shows up and warns us that enemy reinforcements are on the way. Those enemies had killed all of Cordelia’s comrades, and she’s feeling pretty guilty about running away, even though she was ordered to in order to let us know what was coming. Anyway, now we have another peagaus knight, which is pretty cool.

Emmeryn decides that she needs to be with her people in these dark times and returns to Ylisse, despite Chrom’s objections. She gives Chrom the Fire Emblem and leaves. The rest of the group heads to Regna Ferox as originally planned. It doesn’t take long for us to get word that the exalt has been captured by Plegia and is set to be executed. Obviously, we leave and head out to rescue her.

Along the way, we find a young girl named Nowi who’s being chased by an old weirdo named Gregor. We quickly find out that Gregor is actually trying to help the Nowi, who’s actually a dragon and like a thousand years old. She’s being hunted down by the Grimleal, followers of the Fell Dragon. So, of course, we help them out and now we have two more additions to the team.

With that out of the way, we arrive at the exalt’s execution site. There, we meet up with Libra, a war monk who along with some other clergymen had arrived to attempt to save the exalt. After talking to her (and learning quite awkwardly that she was a he), Libra joins up with us. Fan favorite character Tharja is also on this map, working for the bad guys. Apparently if I had gotten Chrom over to talk to her, she would have joined us. But, instead I was too busy trying to prevent her from murdering my dudes and killed her. Sorry Tharja fans.

Once we finally made it to where Emmeryn was being held, a group of pegasus knights showed up to try to help her. Unfortunately, Gangrel summons a bunch of Risen who quickly kills all of them. He then gives us a choice, surrender the Fire Emblem or Emmeryn dies. I choose to save Emmeryn, but it doesn’t matter because she kills herself to protect the Emblem. Just then, Marth shows up and curses being too late. Having failed to save the Exalt, we all escape to figure out what to do next.

And that’s where I’m at! Sorry it took so long to get this up. Because of the delay, next week’s *should* be out in a matter of a few days. I hope you’ll stick around and see how I deal with what comes next.