The scene will switch back to the Castle where you will be informed that the Matilda Knights surrendered to the Highland Army while we were taking Greenhill.
You will be prompted with the choice to invade Muse. For the moment, make sure you select "Let me....think about it." as there is much to do before going to Muse.
Leave and return to your Castle, and although it will be hard to tell due to very little change, your Castle will have reached its maximum size. The only notable change with the Castle is there is now a large bedroom on the top floor for Riou (Probably Nanami, though). Most Suikoden veterans know at this point it means that the final set of Stars of Destiny are now available to recruit. Note, if you chose Valeria over Kasumi earlier in the game, you can go to the hidden Rokkaku Hamlet, covered in Chapter 13, and Mondo and Sasuke will now join your party.
With the Castle at its largest state, if you bathe in the newest style of bath, Jungle, 20 different times, you will unlock the Open Air bath to use.
For our first recruit, put Viktor into your party. Visit the blacksmith in Kuskus and the blacksmith, Tessai, will have returned. If Viktor is in your party, you will get a scene between Viktor, Tessai, and the Star Dragon Sword, and then Tessai will join your party and open a blacksmith at your Castle, finally. You should have Iron and Copper Hammers in your warehouse that you can give Tessai to increase the level in which he can sharpen weapons. However, it is recommended, for completionists, that you keep them there and don't hand them over. I will explain when we obtain the next hammer.
Um...what?
Have Viki warp you over to the newly-liberated Greenhill and enter the inn. You will see Pico, who seems to know Annallee, breaking up with the inn's biggest attraction. Tell him about Annallee being at your Castle and he will join your group and head off for the Castle; leaving his girlfriend behind and angry with you.
Greenhill's rare finds have been updated and you can now occasionally find the Window Set #6 and Rabbit Plans #4 items for your Castle there.
In the clearing to the left-side of the Academy, you can pick up a stray Piglet to take back to Yuzu.
Inside the dormitory, head down to the basement where you followed Shin through the hidden passage earlier in the game, and talk to the guy here to obtain the Old Book Vol. 10.
At New Leaf Academy, talk to the new rune teacher who replaced Jeane and she will hand over a Rage Rune to the party. This is the higher grade Fire Rune. It replaces the Flaming Arrows spell with a devastating, all-encompassing, Final Flame spell; while adding MP to the additional spells contained within the Rune. This is also an excellent damage-dealer when attached to a character's weapon rune slot.
The blacksmith classroom contains a new Star of Destiny: Jude. Talk to him and he will mutter to himself about being out of clay. To find some clay for him, head over to the Forest Village and in the forest path to the northeast of the village, you will find a guy who has a hidden place in the forest he can get all of the clay he needs. If you talk with him, he will hand over a Clay special item to your party. Take it back to Jude and he will join your party. At your Castle, Jude is located right next to the Tablet of Stars and you can take your huge pile of Dragon/Rabbit/Unicorn/Turtle plans to him to relieve your warehouse. This is an important part of the game for completionists, but we are still lacking two Plans to do this, so I will return here when we obtain them
Jude's recruitment also adds another minor thing to the Castle. Outside on the terrace behind Shu's room on the 4th floor, there will now be a statue. Whom is represented here is the character that has killed the most enemies in the game; which unless you've been trying really hard for someone else, will no doubt be Riou. Bet this thing gets covered in bird droppings, though.
Still at Greenhill, if Tessai has joined your party, the apprentice here will hand over the Silver Hammer. So, about hammers...Tessai will only use the highest-ranking hammer; so giving him the lesser ones will just waste an item you could keep. Of course, this is just for us completionists who care. We are within arms-reach of obtaining the best hammer in the game, and we can still sharpen our weapons to a respectable 13 in Tinto, so stick the Silver Hammer in your warehouse along with the Iron and Copper ones to keep them. You decide if you would like to do this, however.
At Forest Village, if you talk to Connell's sister, she will give you the Sound Set #7 that he left behind. This is the last Sound Set you will acquire, so when you talk with Connell, you should have eight different-colored Doremi Elves available to select.
Now, we need to warp over to Tinto to continue. In the armor shop, talk to Alberto with Annallee and Pico recruited and tell him they are both at your Castle and he will join your party as well. He joins with Annallee and Pico at your Castle to play music tracks for you. With all three recruited, you can also occasionally find them on-stage performing a special music track (Where Annalee will actually sing). While you are at the armory in Tinto, don't forget about looking for Wind Hats in the rare finds.
Inside the Tinto Mine, toward the end, where all the slides and Journeyman Crystal are, Mazus can be found in the lower section of it. If your Castle has reached maximum size, he will join your party.
Put Simone in your party and head over to Radat Town for our next recruit. We'll find Vincent de Boule, from the original Suikoden, waiting for Simone in the same spot we recruited him. After the scene, he will join your group and the two will run off together. Unlike the original game, Vincent is actually a playable character in this one. He also comes equipped with the fifth, and final, Blue Ribbon accessory in the game.
Trek your way back through the Cave of the Wind to where we found the Star Dragon Sword much earlier in the game, and Pesmerga, also from the previous Suikoden, will still be searching for Yuber. Ask him to join you and he will. Also accept his invite to join your active party. For some reason, they thought it was a good idea to lock all of Pesmerga's equipment, except his third accessory slot. None of which he has equipped is the best in the game, except maybe the Horned Helmet, but that is debatable. Still, he is a formidable party member.
Pesmerga comes attached with the only Counter Rune in the game, which you might expect, increases your chances to counterattack after a successful evasion. They must have made a mistake and forgot to add this as a monster drop cause I have no idea why they limited this thing to just one. You could buy them in the original game. Granted you could buy Hazy Runes too, but I digress.
For the final Star of Destiny, we need a character who's weapon is sharpened to at least 14. If you didn't hand over the Silver Hammer to Tessai, we will need to use either Pesmerga or Tir who, if you had their weapon at level 16 in the original Suikoden, should meet this requirement. Sail to Coronet, north of Kuskus, and talk to Genshu here who will want to examine your sword. If you have a character's weapon lvl 14 or higher, he will join your party. You should now have recruited all 108 Stars of Destiny. We can now return to the war room and except Apple's request to retake Muse. The game will automatically switch back to Greenhill to begin the campaign.
When Riou and Nanami exit the dormitory, they will see Lucia rushing inside of the Academy. Follow her, and of course, you will end up back in the forest path. So I lied in the previous chapter: you will, one more time, have to trek through a couple of forest screens to find Jowy. Jowy will try to persuade you, once more, to leave your army. He should have showed up back in Tinto, huh? Riou will refuse and Jowy will acknowledge the inevitable battle between the Bright Shield and Black Sword Runes, to the dismay of Nanami. Afterwards, return to Apple to begin the battle for Muse.
This battle looks intimidating, but is extremely easy. A few turns in, all of the Highland units will fall back, leaving only Lucia and the Karayans to be swarmed by your forces. Just make sure that none of your units die in this battle; we don't want to have come all this way for nothing. You'll be at the gates of Muse and Viktor will be a required member of your party to investigate the state of the city.
The city is suspiciously abandoned. Haven't we seen this before? Anyway, approach city hall and talk to the soldier there who said he saw a shadow inside. The party will be attacked by a Golden Wolf when they enter. This isn't really a boss, but its attacks can do a respectable amount of damage. When it's defeated, if you didn't get the Old Book Vol. 4 from the storage room of city hall back in Chapter 5, this is your last chance to do so. Muse city hall will be inaccessible for the rest of the game.
Back in the city, it is now swarming with Golden Wolves. You can battle them to your hearts content, but they will always respawn, so proceed back to the entrance of Muse. Luc will reveal this is the work of the Beast Rune and we will have to retreat for now and return to the Castle.
You will find Kiba entering Shu's room on the fourth floor. Shu will have devised a plan to bring a climax to the war, but it will require an extreme sacrifice from Kiba. Before entering the room to talk to Shu, we need to make sure of a few things. First, you need to have completed all your Richmond investigations on Kiba; he is about to leave us, for good. Second, at this point, you must have recruited all 108 Stars of Destiny in order to obtain the best ending and a bonus. Check your Tablet of Stars and make sure all the slots are filled and none are greyed-out, meaning they died in battle. If you have fulfilled these requirements, save your game, and return to Shu to begin your next mission.
