I made it quite a bit further in Suikoden V today, though at 21 hours in I’m still apparently only about a third of the way through the game, judging by the chapter counts…

I had to head back to Raftfleet and then took off for Agate Prison, though I had to take the long way through a mine and dwarven town to get to it. There we recruited the tactician we needed, and learned some more about the Lordlake uprising and how the Sun Rune was involved.

Upon heading back to Raftfleet, it came under attack from the Godwin navy and another war battle occurred. This one involved ships instead, but played pretty much like the first one, and was fairly easy in the end since I only had to defeat two ships. Having saved them, Raftfleet is now an ally.

I returned with the tactician to Rainwall, where suspicions developed that Lord Barows was hiding something, so next I needed a detective. Fortunately, there was one right in town, and after a bit of work we discovered a drunkard who was involved in Lordlake and took him there to confront it and fess up. After that I then recruited a few more characters, as per the walkthrough, since some of them can be missed if you don’t get them at the right time.

After returning to Rainwall again, another war battle was approaching, and some intrigue about Barows and his involvement with the neighbouring country of Ames was revealed. The war battle turned out to be a Barows trap, but we turned it back on them by following the tactician’s advice. After that, the Barows’ guilt was too evident and even his own daughter demanded to know what he was hiding. I had to duel the storehouse keeper to be let into the basement, where the missing Dawn Rune was discovered, along with the mysterious vanishing lady again.

More was revealed about how the Dawn Rune went missing, the Lordlake incident, and how the Barows were involved, and we clearly weren’t going to be able to remain allied with them, so our party left town and headed back to Raftfleet, including the Barows’ daughter, who has sided with me. Raftfleet will be my new base of operations (for now anyway), and I finished off the session by recruiting a few more characters.