Despite our success in Two River, Shu has some bad news for us back in the war room: Jowy has managed to successfully take Greenhill. Shu will devise a plan for Riou and a party of younger characters to infiltrate the Academy at Greenhill and rescue the acting mayor, Teresa Wisemail. Besides Nanami and Flik, who are required characters, you can take four other characters that are of college age. As you might imagine, this will limit your choices, so choose well and make sure they are prepared.
The armor shop out in Forest Village, west of Greenhill, is now open. If you talk to the guy in the back, he will sell you an Iron Hammer for 2000 potch. You can't use this at the moment, but pick it up anyway. As for the armor sold here now, there is nothing much to note. If you find Scale Mail in the rare finds, pick it up for some characters. You will be able to buy it later on, but it's a great piece of armor at this point in the game. Let's take a look at the new enemies that are out on the world map in the Greenhill area now.
The Ragged One monster has two rare items that are only available for a limited time and cannot be gotten elsewhere in the game. The enemies around Greenhill will change later on in the game, so these two items absolutely have to be gotten before or you will miss them for good. The first item is the Turtle Plans #2; another Castle item. Unfortunately, we are still a long ways off on being able to put these to use, so this will need to be stashed in your warehouse with the rest.
Also dropped by the Ragged One is the Chick accessory; not to be confused with the Castle item of the same name. This useless accessory does nothing when equipped, but if you enter the bath with it, it will be floating in the water with the character. Awesome. Still, it is a one-of-a-kind item and you can only get it here. We're ready to enter Greenhill now.
You'll meet Fitcher at the city gates and he will turn over the paperwork that is necessary to enter the New Leaf Academy. The party will need to come up with some aliases as they will be going incognito. Choose whatever you like for both Riou and Nanami; it makes absolutely no difference. For Flik's name, it's highly recommended you pick "Sturtheim Reinbach III" to keep with the running Suikoden series gag. When you are finished deciding, approach the city gates to enter.
Hey, I know her! She's a good mom.
At the inn, talk to the lady inside the kitchen to obtain Recipe #20.
You can, hopefully, uncover Recipe #25 as well from the item shop's rare finds.
Apparently, this kid has never seen a Circuret before. Now that you mention it, neither have I. Anyways, when you approach the north-side of town, you will see a scene where Flik will rescue a schoolgirl, Nina, from a Highland soldier. Well, it was actually the other way around, but I digress.
When you arrive at the New Leaf Academy, talk with Emilia at the front desk to register the party. Follow her a little ways north afterwards and talk with her again as she gives you a slight overview of the school. A mysterious man, Shin, will walk by, drawing the interest of Flik and the party, then Emilia will leave you to tour the school grounds.
In the first room on the right, you can talk to a student to access a rune shop. This is your first opportunity to buy Resurrection Runes and they also carry a very rare rune in their rare finds: the Draining Rune. You'll find one of these attached to a character that joins your party later on in the game, but in the rare finds here is the only other place in the game you can find this rune. Only users of certain weapon types can attach the Draining Rune, but when they do, if they land a critical hit, it will restore their HP by 1/4 of the damage dealt. Obviously, this is best suited to be attached along with a Killer Rune or a character with a high Tech stat that criticals often. My opinion: this isn't worth a rune slot. If this were a weapon rune, my opinion would probably be different. As it is, there are just too many other useful runes in the game for this to make much sense for a setup.
Search the bookcase of the northern-most classroom on the left-side of the first floor to find the Old Book Vol. 5. We're close to being able to put these things to use.
Talk to Emilia again at the reception desk and ask her about Shin. Then reveal the truth of your incursion into Greenhill and she will offer you her full support. Doing this also recruits her as a member of your army; although it is never announced. Once the scenario in Greenhill is over, she will be at your Castle and you can bring her all of the Old Books you have acquired thus far. Back outside the Academy, the party will run into Nina again; whom seems to be smitten with Flik. She will drag Flik off to show him around the town while the party is directed to the dormitory on the west-side of the campus. Note, at this point, you can still leave Greenhill and return to the Castle, but Leona will not be available to change party members.
Proceed over to the dormitory and talk with the receptionist here who has prepared rooms for you. On the second floor, enter the first room on the lower end and choose to rest until dinner. Afterwards, Nina will be scoping out Nanami as a possible threat to her and Flik...In the morning, find Flik outside the dormitory and then talk with Emilia as you proceed back into the city.
There is a commotion with Highland soldiers going on at the inn and Shin will arrive to confront Rowd, who has his mind set on burning the place down to find Teresa. Watch the scenes as Rowd will eventually relent and Shin will return toward the Academy. You will lose track of Shin, so just return to your room at the dorm for the night. Nina will warn you of wandering ghosts at night...
The next day, you will find Nina in the shadows to the left of the Academy reception desk. Nanami will ask her about the so called "wandering ghost" and then you can leave the school to find Flik. When Flik rejoins, head back down into the city to find Fitcher.
Fitcher is in a tight spot with some Greenhill ruffians. Thankfully, Flik will intervene and be so ruthless toward Fitcher that it will send them scurrying off. He will explain to the party that Teresa is nowhere to be found and that the new Highland Commander will be back in town soon. For now, return to the dormitory to rest.
That night, after another visit from Nina, the party will be awakened by said "wandering ghost". Follow it around the dormitory and eventually down into the cellar. Search the unlit lamp on the wall to reveal a secret passage that will take you over into the Academy. When you emerge in the Academy, you will find Flik on the left-side of the area, and then search the bust on the pedestal to reveal another secret passage that will lead out into the Greenhill Forest Path: our next dungeon.
Most of the enemies here are new, but not of any real note. The Holly Elf can drop a rare, but another novelty, rune, but you can get these easier here later on when the enemies change. Proceed through the area (Man, this game loves forests, doesn't it?) until you are confronted by Shin. Teresa will appear to break up the fighting. She will explain how Greenhill came to be in the position it is in and will refuse your offer to help her escape. There's nothing you can do but leave, for now.
In the morning, meet Flik near the center of the Academy area to prepare to leave Greenhill. However, the party will be stopped by Rowd putting a bounty out on Teresa's capture to the citizens of Greenhill. Jowy will then, finally, make his appearance as the new Highland commander. Pilika and the party will run over to him, but Rowd will send a group of Highland soldiers against you after Fitcher causes a panic amongst the people. Your destination is to flee back through the Forest Path to find Teresa, fighting Highland soldiers along the way. Note, that when you enter the Academy again, a blacksmith will now be in the blacksmith's classroom on the first floor. He can sharpen your weapons to lvl 8.
Even now, Teresa will refuse to leave, instead opting to give herself over to Highland in an attempt to maintain peace. Follow Nina, once again, back to the Academy and then into the city. Shin will step in the way of Highland taking Teresa and Nina will rally the people to support their mayor surviving and eventually returning to recapture Greenhill. Make your way back into the Greenhill Forest Path to escape from here. Near the cabin, Shin will confront Rowd leaving Teresa and your party to escape.
There are several treasure chests on your way through the Forest, but only one to make note of: the Chimera Rune. This is the only one in the game you will find. Unfortunately, this is also among the worst runes in the game. You can use this rune during battle to transfer whatever status, whether it be positive, like fury, or negative, like poison, from that character to another. Just awful. Bury this thing in your warehouse since it's one-of-a-kind.
Toward the end of the Path, Jowy will be waiting for your party. He will try to convince Riou to give up the fight against Highland. He's not working for Luca, but rather against him, for his own ideals. Flik will drag Nanami and Pilika away as Jowy says farwell to Riou...and stands in the way of Rowd giving pursuit to them. One more screen over and the party will exit back to the world map. To continue the story, we are to return the Castle, but first, let's look at some new recruits that are available to us now.
If you stop by the rune shop in Two River, Jeane, a Suikoden series mainstay, has left the Green Leaf Academy and returned to her rune shop. Ask her to join your group and she will; providing a much-needed rune shop for your Castle.
Back down in Kobold Village, a little shepherd girl, Yuzu, will be wandering around near the trading post. Talk with her and volunteer to look for her lost sheep in the Unicorn Forest. Return her three sheep around the big tree at the end and offer for her and her sheep to stay at your Castle and she will join your party. Yuzu will provide a ranch area for the Castle. If you bring her farm animals, it will expand the amount of dishes Hai Yo can make at his restaurant. However, just like with Tony and his seedlings, there is a bug in the game that requires you to only give ONE animal to Yuzu at a time. Giving more than one animal to her at once will cause only one of the animals to show up in the ranch. Again, this is frustrating to have to run back and forth to the warehouse, but it's a necessary evil for completionists. Speaking of farm animals, now that Yuzu is recruited, a lot of them have popped up in the world for us to obtain.
If you go back into the Unicorn Forest, we will find the reason we needed to forgo opening any treasure chests in the dungeon. There is a stray Lamb here, but only if the chests here remained unopened, of course, due to another bug in the game. Once you grab the Lamb, you can now open the area's treasure chests, unfortunately, almost all of them contain Necklace accessories.
However, the big tree at the end of the area has two treasure chests hidden behind it. One with a Guard Ring accessory and the other with the excellent counter-attack-increasing Mangosh shield.
In Drakemouth Village, just south of Kobold Village, a Calf salesman has appeared with the recruitment of Yuzu. You can buy a Calf item for the ranch from him.
Also in Drakemouth, inside the storage building just to the lower-right of where the Calf salesman is; you can see some stepping stones leading into the entrance, there is a bag sitting on a crate that you can pilfer for a Cabbage Seed for Tony.
If you head back to the Forest Village, there is yet another Lamb for you to purchase.
At Lakewest, just north of where you dock your boat at the pier, you will see a baby chick. You can pick it up to obtain a Chick for Yuzu's ranch.
Just outside Shu's mansion at Radat Town, a piglet salesman will be standing. He will sell you a Piglet item for the Castle farm. That's it for the farm animals, for now. Return to your Castle and into the war room to resume the game.
