There’s been a lot of Fire Emblem happening over here lately. From last week’s taste of Fire Emblem Warriors, constantly checking in on the current Voting Gauntlet in Fire Emblem Heroes, and of course playing more Awakening, I just can’t seem to stop playing Fire Emblem games. Which is weird because up until very recently, I really didn’t have any interest in it. But hey, now I’m playing this stuff and it’s time to see what happened this week. First, let’s go over some numbers. My current play time is just under 17 hours, I’m currently on chapter 21, and due to a class change, Ivan Ooze is now level 4.

We join our heroes this week as they prepare to fight Say’ri’s brother, Yen’fay. With Yen’fay’s forces coming from one side and enemies they escaped from coming from the other, they have to come up with a way to deal with all of them without being surrounded. Thankfully, there’s a conveniently placed volcano nearby, so everyone heads over there.

This fight is a little different from previous ones as the ground sometimes breaks apart due to volcanic activity, hurting any units that are standing on the wrong place at the wrong time. This is honestly kind of annoying, as I didn’t see any way to predict where that would happen next. However, it does hurt the enemy too, so it worked out to my benefit just as much as it hurt.

Beyond that though, the mission plays out like any other. We fight all the bad guys and eventually cut down Yen’fay. Afterwards, that weirdo Excellus shows up again and reveals that Yen’fay only joined up with empire because Excellus promised not to kill his sister if he did so. Why he’s telling us this, I don’t know, but Say’ri’s really mad about it. Excellus makes his escape, and we go to plan our next move.

Here we find out that Walhart killed what’s his face at the end of last week’s installment. Flavia gives Chrom the gemstone, which should have been given to him earlier but whatever. Just then, a scout shows up and reports that the empire has retreated to the imperial capital. So, we decide that we’re going to go kill them.

Before that, however, a paralogue has shown up on the map screen, so I go do that instead. Tiki needs to absorb some of Naga’s power or something, but is completely defenseless. Of course, a bunch of Risen show up, so we have to kill them and not let them get to Tiki.

This mission sucks and I had to restart it several times before finally managing to save Tiki. Yes, you can go on with the game without her, but if she dies, even in casual mode, she will not join your team. And even though I was perfectly okay with not recruiting Tharja earlier, I absolutely will not go on without Tiki in my team. She made me eat donuts and describe them to her back in Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, so obviously, she’s the best.

So after finally managing to recruit her. I get back to the story. The next two chapters are roll right into one another. We head to the imperial castle, and Walhart and his men are waiting for us. There’s a big fight, we kill them all and defeat the emperor. But apparently, he’s not dead, as he scurries back into his castle. Before we head in after him, a bunch of the dynasts that joined up with the empire show up, but it seems that after Yen’fay was killed, they’re more than happy to join our cause.

So, into the castle we go. This time, Walhart has Excellus and that mustache guy from last week  to help him out. I had actually struggled a little bit on the previous fight (thank God for casual mode), but this one was a slaughter. The good kind of slaughter. The kind where I kill all of them really easily. Not much to say about the mission either, you move forward, kill everything, take out the emperor.

With him dead, we find our fourth gemstone and return to Ylisse. Fredrick, who by the way despite being one of my best units early in the game has become completely useless and dies all the time, returns from a mission to find the final gemstone. He didn’t find it, however, he has received word from Validar that he has it. Obviously, we don’t trust him, but that’s what we’re going to do… next week!

But I didn’t actually stop there! Remember how I said I was working on raising the support rank for Lucina and Ivan to get them married? Well, I did it! It seems a little sudden when it happens. Ivan shows up, he’s like, “hey, I got you some flowers.” Lucina’s all, “oh, that’s cool.” Then Ivan tells her he loves her, and next thing you know they’re married. That’s how it works in real life too!

So as soon as this happens, another paralogue opens up. This is a super easy one. We find a young girl named Morgan who is a tactician with no memory, just like how Ivan was found at the beginning of the game. There’s a bunch of Risen running around, so kill them and recruit Morgan. Turns out, she’s Ivan and Lucina’s daughter from the future. Is that another timeline? Because she wasn’t born in Lucina’s, and Lucina is from the future, so we got married technically before she went back in time… and… I guess don’t worry about it. Anyway, she’s on our team now. We literally just got married, and we already have a daughter running around.

And that’s where I’ve left off. I’m pretty sure I’m coming close to the end of the story, what with there only being one more gemstone remaining. Will I manage to get it next week? I guess we’ll find out.