God Save the Queen, Indeed: Let's Play Long Live the Queen!

[Terraoblivion]

That's certainly...special. There's the age difference too...Yeah, I think I'll stick to the other yuri option from now on, even if it is quite hard to get, it seems.

[Mirrinus]

The other yuri option was hair-pullingly difficult to get without a walkthrough. I think I had to do like 3 or 4 separate playthroughs before I finally aced that event, because it just has way too many unrelated skill checks that I'd have never have guessed would have been relevant. It was all "Okay, I got this far...what, now I have to have (insert useless skill here)?! Fine, I'll do this again, this time I better...you've got to be kidding me, I also need (insert useless skill here) as well?!?"

Totally not worth the effort, as far as I'm concerned. But then again, I like challenging myself in this game. For example, I like playing through with the handicap of barring two schools of skills and seeing if I can still win the game. I've succeeded with Physical and Mystical as my barred schools, even ignoring Economics and Military too, and got a pretty good ending with just the top 6 skill groups. I think most other combinations of 2 schools can also win the game, although some are forced to end up with bad endings where you technically survive to the coronation, but at the expense of pretty much everyone and everything you care about.

This Let's Play makes me want to do more runthroughs, haha. I think my next challenge will be a "perfect" run where I will prevent every single preventable death in the game, both my own and that of the dozens of other characters that can die, whether good or not-so-good. Except the soldiers in the military (but they don't have names or even titles, so who cares). I'm not sure if this is even possible, and if it is, it'll probably require very careful micromanagement of which skills to learn and when to learn them. But hey, gotta push the limits, right? That's the essence of a Choose Your Own Adventure title.

[Eldariel]

Originally Posted by Terraoblivion

That's certainly...special. There's the age difference too...Yeah, I think I'll stick to the other yuri option from now on, even if it is quite hard to get, it seems.

I think you have just enough skill points to make all the necessary checks throughout the game to reach it (well, at least with my suboptimal mood management). It really doesn't leave a lot; maybe ~10 classes of extra with perfect moods.

Spoiler

Quick catalogue, you need to either 80 Sense Magic or survive Bandits (Reflexes+Archery or Battlefield Medicine+Composure) & Chocolate (Courtly Manners, Production+Trade, Dogs or Divination), then need Novan History or Lore to go with Brione, then Herbs, Running & Horses or Dance? to save her, then Cipher for the letter, Internal Affairs, Conversation & whatever skills used to beat the final fight. And I'm pretty sure there's some important earlier check I'm not remembering.

[Mirrinus]

Yeah, there's even more to that event than you listed.

Spoiler

Even if you agree to go on the adventure with Briony, your plans will be ruined if you've done any of the things to trigger the coup d'etat by the other nobles. That ruined at least one or two of my attempts to complete the Briony event. On the plus side, if you've convinced Briony to go with you this far, you can use her as a hostage to get the rebelling nobles to back off, since her own parents are among those attempting the coup. Needless to say, she won't like you if you do that, so no yuri option for you.

[Eldariel]

Originally Posted by Mirrinus

Yeah, there's even more to that event than you listed.

Spoiler

Even if you agree to go on the adventure with Briony, your plans will be ruined if you've done any of the things to trigger the coup d'etat by the other nobles. That ruined at least one or two of my attempts to complete the Briony event. On the plus side, if you've convinced Briony to go with you this far, you can use her as a hostage to get the rebelling nobles to back off, since her own parents are among those attempting the coup. Needless to say, she won't like you if you do that, so no yuri option for you.

Spoiler

Think you can avoid the Coup just through choices though; I'm pretty sure you'll be okay without any checks if you pick the right way. Siding with Brin and Banion vs. Ixionites solves it I think.

[Mirrinus]

Okay, no more spoiler boxes for a little bit, this is getting silly again. Gotta keep this accessible to everyone.

So yeah...I support Magical Batgirl, but does she still have the DO NOT KILL policy that Batman has? Because this is important for future choices that I will vote for.

[Sanguine]

I vote we give her a court position.

[Tome]

Gonna agree with the court position myself.

[Deme]

You're lucky we didn't get to dance with Brin, or I would be tapping my 'angry anti-spoiler' foot. In the meanwhile, I'll just add hurrah for forums and comment that that's pretty squicky. And also that there'll be an update tonight.

[Tavar]

Keep her secret, we don't want her any more involved with court than she already is.

[TengYt]

Give her a Court Position, if we can earn her trust we may have another magic user on our side.

[Mobius Twist]

Does promising to keep her secret lock us into doing just that for the rest of the game, or are we allowed to change our mind as the circumstances dictate?

Because if we're not promise-locked by game logic, I say do that. It gets us out of that room with extra knowledge and no worse for the wear.

[Deme]

Originally Posted by Mobius Twist

Does promising to keep her secret lock us into doing just that for the rest of the game, or are we allowed to change our mind as the circumstances dictate?

Because if we're not promise-locked by game logic, I say do that. It gets us out of that room with extra knowledge and no worse for the wear.

I'm pretty sure it's a choice that locks us in -- certainly, I can't think of an opportunity for us to go "actually, Aunty, why don't you come with us."

[Tavar]

What does giving her a court position entail? Seems a bit vauge.

[Deme]

It's a little vague from the scene itself...She's a witch and she's our witch, basically. We invent a position for her to do some witching for the good of Novan, while offering her protection against Lumen-haters. Why we don't do this for, say, Julianna, I don't know.
Maybe because Julianna's a) not our aunt, b) Already a Lumen on our side, and c) It probably wouldn't make her much happier (she seems like the sort to be too proud to accept protection easily), but may make Lucille happier.

[Terraoblivion]

And more to the point, gives her a vested interest in keeping us alive since her own position and security from persecution is contingent on Elodie now that her secret is out. She'd be very easy to screw over in a power struggle should something happen to us, after all.

[TheEmerged]

+1 "Court Position"

[Deme]

Week 17 still
or
I Love You, You Love Me, We're a Happy Family...For Now, Anyway

Spoiler

And the "Offer her a court position" has it!

So she's the minister of magic.

"What?"
Yeah, this sort of is an odd decision from an outside perspective.

"Lumens have power. If you train with me, you'll become even stronger."

That brings the "Lumens in our court we know about" up to 3, counting ourselves. We're like a magical nuke.

And it makes our beloved aunty happy, right, guys? And we get another member of the bat-family!


Wow. She didn't ponder that even for a second, did she?
"Good!"


Game, quit doing the snarking for me! We know we accepted a lady of questionable alignment into our service, no need to joke about it and make it sound cutesey.

Anyway, with that, we've fulfilled a checklist item! 'Hired a Lumen Minister.' We've also done a thing I've never accomplished, making this LP's secret purpose of breaking me out of my box satisfied!

And we've made it to another weekend. We've actually avoided a second possible death by means of not qualifying for it.


Our mood is pretty buoyant. What shall we do?

Visit Treasury: +1 Willful

Attend Court: +2 Yielding, +1 Depressed, +1 Pressured

Attend Service*: -1 Cheerful

Explore Castle: +1 Lonely, +1 Afraid

Play with Toys: +1 Yielding, +1 Lonely, +1 Cheeful.

Visit Dungeons* +1 Willful, +1 Angry

Visit Tomb: +1 Depressed, +1 Afraid

Walk in the Gardens: +1 Lonely, +1 Cheerful.

Sneak Out: +1 Lonely, +2 Willfull

Play Sports*: +1 angry

[Sanguine]

Let's Visit the Dungeons followed by classes in Internal Affairs and Foreign Intelligence.

[TengYt]

Visit Dungeons, Double Dose of Wield Magic.

[NotAEvilToaster]

Dungeons, Internal Affairs and Foreign Intelligence

+1 reader!

[Hawkflight]

Let us explore the castle! Followed by some Internal Affairs and dogs.

[Tavar]

Dungeons, Internal Affairs and Wield Magic

[Forum Explorer]

Play with Toys

Internal Affairs and Dogs

[SlyGuyMcFly]

Originally Posted by NotAEvilToaster

Dungeons, Internal Affairs and Foreign Intelligence

Second this.

[Mobius Twist]

Weren't we still on a magic powerleveling schtick until that is maxed out?

Dungeons definitely seem like the place to go to remind us of the superstitious and cowardly.

Otherwise, I'm okay with the Internal Affairs/Foreign Intelligence schtick if magic is off the table.

[Deme]

Magic isn't off the table...But I was mainly making the plan with the idea of passing this check in mind.

[Tome]

We will want to boost our Resist Magic soonish though.

[Deme]

We'll see what we want, I suppose...

Chapter 25, Week 18, Mood Willfull, Part 1
or
When Put Like That, My Part in This Sounds Kind of Meaningless.

Spoiler

Now, for some reason, you guys all wanted to go to the dungeons.
You are aware we do not get bigger bonuses for being more willful (our dominant mood), right? I keep saying this. You know that this choice can only result in making the game harder, right?
Right?

Well, anyway, I'm only here to press buttons and commentate. To the dungeons!



Our current skills....

It appears the next buttons I press is to get us through some more intrigue. As I like intrigue, this is good.


So, today's lessons appear to be themed around gay people. Is the priestess Duchess of Hellas, or is Hellas Brin? I can't recall.


That second one really ought to help Elodie later. But it doesn't...Or am I confusing place names (fantasy names are, if you haven't noticed, not a strong suit).
Anyway, that's not a really big concern for us right now.


This can only end badly.

You're moving with such enthusiasm that you don't realise you father isn't alone until it's too late to avoid him and his...companion.


I'm not normally given to calling any lady a floozy, but... I think this calls for an exception.
Our daddy's with some floozy!


She's a year younger than our fiance, all told. I love the emphasis on the 'not' there.
She has two minor titles, no husband, and your father's arm in her grasp.
How dare she make a move on your father?

Princess Elodie will not stand for this!

The question is...How do we exact our revenge?

[tyckspoon]

Trip Her. It's the only option we might actually succeed at.