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Thanks to promoted Palla, the desert maps should be a cakewalk.
#FIRE EMBLEM ECHOES SEABOUND SHRINE FREE#
Cash in those coral fragments alongside the 5th free one in zofia harbor, then go back to forge more things - the dream is to have a silver sword +0/1 and Silver Lance +3. Finish up getting the coral fragments - remember though that item drop rate is severely reduced after you exit a mila shrine area so you might want to reenter the dungeon for a bit. The end result is that you have a promoted Palla (you can additionally give her the HP wells and the fruit of life - well and stat booster distribution will be in another part, this is the only notable example I want to mention) before you enter the desert chapters, which is a big boon. Then once you enter the shrine (dont forget to bring palla and atlas), you can promote atlas to archer, get 4 coral fragments from cutting coral in the first part of the dungeon (red grass), then once you reach the EXP wells, give them to Palla as well as the golden apple, unless palla hit level 10 before exp wells through random battles. Go there and make sure Palla reaches level 9.
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This is why we left the Seabound Shrine for act 3 - not only is the battle going to be easier, but we can feed the exp to more relevant units. This is where the big cheese begins - we have Palla, who is about midway through level 8 and base Atlas. I will cover Forging in general in the next part of this series, so for now just take my word for it. This is where you want to turn the Steel Lance into a Silver Lance and forge it up - preferably to +3 but if you don't have that much money even +1 works. Once that's done, go to the village to recruit Atlas and do/activate all the quests (except the woodcutter, the reward is not worth it). Give Palla the Steel Lance, then go do the graveyard battle while feeding Palla exp. **Act 3 Celica:** After you finish the first battle, go ahead and recruit Palla and Catria. This means that Alm will have an extra 3 gold to work with when he reaches the smithy for forging, thus it is preferred over Alm moving first, as he has nothing quite as good to give to Celica. The main reason is the Rion Shield, which can be sent via celica's act 3 peddler, as giving that to lord Rion gives you a pegasus cheese, which in turn can be given to the cheese lover next to him for an Exotic Spice. The removal of cross-route revival and the addition of quests made it so that it's best to finish Celica's side first. In the original gaiden, you finished Alm route first in order to kill off silque and revive her on Celica's route for warp. **Act 3:** Now that both armies are availible to be moved at the same time, a decision needs to be made in how you're going to move them. Doing this gives you a steel lance on celica's side much earlier than intended. When you do get into the castle, before going to Mycen you want to pick up that Steel Lance and Iron Shield that Alm didn't pick up. For promoting, you do not have to backtrack to the priory if you do not want, as Celica has access to the Deliverance HQ near the end for promotions - don't forget to promote Saber before the Zofia Castle battle with only him and Celica. Make sure to save up the Fruit of Life and the Golden Apple you get as well.
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It will be explained in act 3 but for now just ignore it. **Act 2:** Beyond just going through the act normally (Don't forget you can retreat if NPC Leon is close to death and he'll get healed to full), the one major deviation is that you do not want to do the Seabound Shrine just yet. You can pick up everything from other places (don't forget the Ridersbane) but leave these two alone. Second and more important - in the central hall of Zofia Castle, there is an armor piece with a collectable Steel Lance and an Iron Shield. There are only two major things to remember: if someone can promote after 1-E (like Clive), backtrack before ending the act, as if you wait until act 3 you will have to suffer through map spawns. **Act 1:** This act is very straightforward, just recruit everyone you can and beat Zofia Castle.
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