Day Breaks

Day Breaks is chapter 17 of Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and is composed of four parts. After it was revealed that Duke Oliver was keeping Reyson on his property and the heron's subsequent escape, Sanaki asks Ike to take care of Oliver, an order with which Ike gladly complies with. Ike is also told about the Serenes Massacre after Reyson mentioned it as he escaped. This chapter is mostly about defeating Oliver's forces while trying to rescue Reyson from the duke's forces at the same time. Leanne is also discovered sleeping in the forest after you clear the enemies in the second part. After she wakes up, she says something and then starts drifting away from Ike's group, and when Ike calls out to her to wait, she faints. Oliver comes in just then and sees how there is another heron. Not wanting Oliver to capture Leanne, Ike then fights with her on his back. In this state, he cannot rescue anybody else, and Leanne cannot be taken from him by another character, so Ike suffers penalties to his stats for the second half of the chapter.

The first part is very easy with mostly a few soldiers and archers who can be easily taken care of. During the base preparations, if you listen to the "Servant" info conversation, a former servant of Duke Tanas will reveal that Oliver's forces have been in the forest many times in search of other herons, and that the duke has many good mages and mounted knights, soon proven true by chapter 17-2, so it would be good to take some longswords, poleaxes and knight killers with you, as well as packing a few pure waters or Ward staves for any characters you deploy with low resistance. Make sure you that buy anything you need and arrange your characters' items at the base preparations screen, as you won't be able to access the shop or change an already-deployed character's inventory between different parts. Also of note is that you cannot reposition any of your characters after the first part of the chapter.