I hate boss battles, especially this one.

Last night, I saved outside of Fletz. Today, I walked right in, waltzed up to the castle, and saw bandits guarding the ceremony.

We’re allowed to hang out in the foyer, but any further movement requires “sneaking” about. If we’re caught, and we will be caught, we’re sent back to the start of the balcony portion of the castle. Our goal is to navigate the outside tower areas of the castle and find Princess Lisa. The king and Emilie are already in the process of handing over the Moon Dagger, so we can’t speak to them. Lisa is in the east tower. Avoiding the gaze of three guards, all at the start, and climbing the stairs around said tower, we find Liza in her room at the top. We inform her of the new information we gained from Gehrich, and she joins us as a guest. She doesn’t do much, but she stops the guards from sending us back to the start. She joined to help find clues in discovering the whereabouts of the real Emilie, which takes us to the left tower, Emilie’s room. There, we scare off the two guards protecting her room and enter in.

We find her room totally disheveled. The party splits up to look around, while Kongol, too big to fit in the room, Meru, and Haschel stand guard. The only thing of note is a beautifully done painting of the room's owner. As Dart examines the painting, a bright light flashes, and the remaining party is teleported into some headache inducing hellscape. Across the divide before us is an unconscious Emilie. Albert warns the other party members still on the outside to not touch the painting while everyone inside brainstorms how to cross the gap. Shana tries to turn into a Dragoon but is unable. According to Rose, it’s hard to transform when not in combat, even for her. After spamming X for a second, Dart finds a button that activates a bridge. Everyone runs across, and Lisa tries to awaken her sister to no avail. Albert tells the sleeping girl that her country is in danger and, because Emilie is a very patriotic woman, she wakes up. We regal her of the tale and we all return to the throne room. On the way, we scare off the rest of the guards, leaving only the fake Emilie.

The camera is shown as the ceremony is happening. King Zior asks, to an empty room, if anyone objects to “Emilie” being the heir. Dart shows up in time to voice his opinion. It is at this time that the fake Emilie lunges forward, steals the Moon Dagger, and shows her true self. She throws off the pink dress she was wearing to reveal herself to he a (clothed) silver haired pirate looking woman named Lenus. She says she’s working in the name of love. Not willing to be a diplomat, Dart tells the Tigorian Royalty to leave, and a fight breaks out.

And I get killed. She loves to use a teamwide physical move that does massive damage to the whole team, as well as magic moves that can do nearly 1000 damage. After learning there was no game over music, I go out and refill my backpack, which I left empty from the Gehrich endeavor. Lenus is a water element, so I return to Lohan and buy red magic. With everything in order, I try again. I die again. And again. And again. And again. Bro, Lenus sucks. She hits hard, has so much HP, and goes so often. She had four straight turns at one point, and it isn’t uncommon for her to get three out of five goes. She has high magic defense, so those items I bought are useless. Eventually, I used a rare stat-boosting spell from Albert, Rose Storm, which halves damage for three turns. Dart should use his Special Dragoon option, which guarantees Dragoon physical attack crits. In what I feel like is a lucky break, I manage to beat the woman and her jet pack backpack.

After the fight, she tells us Gehrich isn’t her love and says something I didn’t get towards Miru, causing our dancer friend to shy away. When the party thinks they have her cornered, she suddenly jumps off the ledge and flies s away. Lenus has wings. A combination of Rose and Zior tells us she’s a Wingly from the ancient civilization that enslaved humans and caused the Dragon Campaign.

With the chaos now, kinda, over and the real Emilie returned, Zior says guards saw where Lenus went. Eyewitnesses say she was heading for Ilise Island and tells us a warship is waiting for us. The ship, Queen’s Fury, is docked in Donau. We head there, talk to Commodore Puler, who’s a romantic seaman, and we set sail to hunt an ancient race.

On the ship, Shana recounts our journey so far to the albatrosses and/or seagulls before wondering where Dart is. The game gives us control of her to search for him, which...

...I’ll do tomorrow.

Why did King Zior not recognize his own daughter? Is Lenus a shapeshifter? What other powers do Winglies have? I know it doesn’t seem like much happened tonight, but Lenus really beat me up. Some Google-fu indicates I’m not alone in that struggle. Subtitle for this entry: Lenus sucks!