No Mercy (Charnel)

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"James is upset, but he may still realize the error of his ways. It is Persephone who must be stopped.
She's blinded by her ideology and will never see the influence of Marduk unless it looks like her traditional foes. She must be destroyed." – Charnel, No Mercy (Intermission)

• Mission Giver: Charnel
• Location: Idylliac
• Map Creator: Andrew DeLap
• New Spells: Intestinal Vaporization, Death

Map of Idylliac (full image)

Starting Setup

• An altar, a shrine and a manalith
• 9 souls
• 2 Manahoars

Objectives

• Defeat Yogo
• Defeat Charlotte

Walkthrough

"Persephone launched a counterattack, to break the stranglehold of Stratos and Charnel over Elysium. While its outcome was still uncertain, I made my assault on her home of Idylliac." – Eldred

Preparations

You arrive at Idylliac, with no creatures but your manahoars and 9 souls on you, ready to take on Persephone on Charnel's orders. You are expected to face Yogo; however, he is not your only opponent. It will soon turn out that James, upon hearing that you have attacked Persephone's home island, has sent the geomancer Charlotte to help out. Thus you will have to fight both wizards; fortunately for you, though, not at the same time.

Build your first manalith, then teleport over to the small island that you have a manalith and a shrine on, and summon your first creature or use spells to deal with the two peasants there. Then convert their souls and teleport back to the mainland. Charlotte has a slow but hard-hitting army of a Jabberrocky, 2 Taurocks, 2 Boulderdashes and other summoned Yeomen (such as Flummoxes).

Fighting Charlotte

The first encounter between you and Charlotte will likely take place around the Mana Fountain just across the small hill in front of your altar. Her Jabberrocky is tough, and if left alive, can really mess you up, so use Intestinal Vaporization on it and try to snatch the 4 souls it yields. (Or try to use Styx's Rend Soul for some impressive carnage.) Other than that, summon some bomber units to deal with the Taurocks and immobilize Charlotte, to be slain by your backup units. (Long-range units are good, or if you've served James until mission seven you can also summon a Jabberrocky of your own. A Styx is also decent, though fragile.) Ideally, at this point you will have slain Charlotte and her units will be retreating. Rush the slow Boulderdashes and Flummoxes with some fast units and spells, then convert what you can.

If things have gone wrong and your units are being slain, don't panic. Charlotte's units are slow and unlikely to kill you, unless you've let the Boulderdashes fire at you for too long. Just keep training new units and concentrate on repelling the assault. If you have your manalith built up, you can employ some Guardians. Use your spells to cut Charlotte's army down to size, but watch out, as she can interrupt your spellcasting with Erupt, and the Flummoxes can also knock you down. If all else fails, pull back a bit and cast Death; this should kill her creatures (and yours, if any are left) and equalize the playing field. If you can kill Charlotte just once and force her to leave some souls behind, you've got the ball rolling, but between her Skin of Stone and her numerically superior army, that's the biggest challenge.

Either way, after a certain amount of time has passed (and if you still haven't desecrated her altar - which is not all that hard if you can defeat her, as it is essentially undefended) Charlotte will be hit by lightning and be slain during a cinematic. Apparently, Marduk, or one of his wizards, has slain James. This will teleport away all of her creatures that are near her altar and activate Yogo's AI. Her altar will still remain, though, so you need to desecrate it normally to be able to use the mana fount underneath it. If you haven't done so already, also replace the two manaliths on the two sides of the map on the top of the nearby hill, and the one beyond her altar.

Fighting Yogo

Yogo will come bouncing towards you, bringing an Ent, two Gremlins, two Trolls, at least one Mutant and possibly creatures in tow. With his army about as big as Charlotte's, but yourself much more prepared and with a bigger army, you may find this part of the mission much easier than the one before. An Intestinal Vaporization spell will get rid of the Ent and possibly take away 4 souls from Yogo straight away, and your other creatures should be able to chew up the rest of his army.

Yogo is level 9, so his biggest threat is a Dragon. He normally won't summon it straight away, but if you've fought him at least once or twice, he may decide to summon one or two. Dragons are major threats to your army, as they probably won't be able to bring it down easily. If you have Intestinal Vaporization ready, you can dispose of one Dragon; if there are several, or if Intestinal Vaporization is still recharging, casting Death and then quickly teleporting away may be worth it to get rid of the flying reptiles. If none of these methods are available, summon bombers and ranged units to deal with them; even Blights will do decent damage to Dragons, and due to his large size a Dragon will have difficulty navigating between the fliers - meanwhile, your ranged units can chip away at them with impunity.

Once you've defeated him several times and weakened him, it's time to move on to banish him and finish Persephone off as well. If you advance on the path to your left, you'll meet two Dragons and two Gnomes guarding a manalith; if you go to the right, you'll face three Mutants and two Gnomes. The best way to proceed is to wait for Death to recharge; leave your creatures far behind (except your manahoars), move in on the path to the right, cast Death and teleport back to the rest of your army. If Yogo isn't back there, both manaliths will be relieved of their guardians; if he is, possibly only one of them, but either way, you'll get rid of the defenders of one manalith without any effort. Move in with your creatures and desecrate Yogo's altar, which should now be undefended, or defended only by Yogo and his weakened army. (Yogo will be here only if he has no manaliths left closer to your altar.) Once you take out Yogo, the mission is complete.

Trivia

• If you banish Charlotte before she is slain due to James' fall to Marduk, you will still see James destroyed after the mission, but will receive no explanation as to why he is gone.

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