Black Matrix Zero Part 5:

Seeing Boba Fett's surlier cousin freaks the party out, and the Mando doesn't help things by only speaking in ellipses. (Ellipses which are STILL too long, might I add?)

Hey, Lilith's a party member now! She seems to be a magic user. Steien, on the other hand, specializes in spears. Nice. Chapter 3 is entitled "Cipher Punk," and has a font large enough that I can say that yes, it's "Punk." And we're back in the town of the same name. There's a lot of new stuff in the shop, but for now I'm letting it go, because we could only maybe afford two weapons, tops. Practice Battle Guy is still here, and we learn that Stei's spear works the same way spears did in Tactics Ogre: they have a two-square range and will hit the units in both.

Time to advance the story! If I know my Kanji, and I sure the hell don't so take this with a grain of salt, the topic of conversation seems to be angels.

Speaking of!
I think this angel's a girl, going by the puffy sleeves and cut of blouse and such. I'll wait for more conclusive proof to say for sure though. I think the angel's name is Shiria, which I'll translate as Syria just to get the weird Google searches that will probably bring. (To anybody who got here that way: Hi!) Syria has a nasty cough, so I'm assuming it's some form of Plot Cancer. And then the topic goes to Incest. Oy.

And then a creepy looking guy whose hat falls over his eyes comes in. Unless it's Beetle Bailey, this is probably bad news. The music thinks so too, since it just changed to the key of Ominous Minor. Exal scares him off, then we're back outside the Tourist Trap for a brief conversation between Stei and Yohane. Then to the setup screen!

Syria's an archer- nice! Need to get her the better bow and put a label on it. But that is totally a dress, so I'm going to say she's female until proven otherwise.

Looks like we get to wreck up a church. Can you see us at the bottom end of the map there? And I suspect I was expected to level grind back in Cipher Punk, because the level range here is 6 for the mooks up to 9 for the cardinalish-looking guy in the middle. This may not go well!

It goes well. The end result is this. The priests had a poison spell, and poison turns out to be particularly nasty in Black Matrix Zero: it damages every time anyone on your side moves. So we cure that pretty quick. We managed to kill everything, though it cost us all our potions and a cure item in the end. Turns out Syria has a status cure though, so we'll be set in the future. We got enough EXP to get our 4s to 5, ALL the 5s to 6, and Cain to 7. Syria came in at 6, so she's good to go.

And now Stei's yelling at another of these dudes about Incest. Then everyone else chimes in...

...Luca is particularly upset and I'm not sure why.

Then she kills the guy. Zion is displeased. Beetle Bailey turns back up to say something, and then everybody is pretty unsettled at the fact that Luca is looking more and more like a serial killer. Some more talking with Stei and one of the local army mooks, and then we're back to the setup screen. Among the prizes we got was more Hard Leather armor, which goes to Yohane since he has the lowest VIT of the party.

Next battle looks a lot like a priestier version of this last battle.