For the King: The A Team

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Now with a clear target, Calia, Dijaam and Esme were sent from Parid into the hot lands to find fuel for an airship - the only method available to directly attack the wizard's dark spire. A demon cave was their first stop, and it also turned out to be their last when they unexpectedly encountered a vampire! He caught Calia by surprise, shoving her right into the maw of a giant carnivorous clam whose jaws shut fast upon its new meal.

His merling assistant easily clobbered Esme and dragged the bard deeper into the darkness while Dijaam fought a losing battle against the bloodsucker. Finally exhausted and disarmed, she was helpless as he sank his teeth into her neck... and everything went black.  

Queen Rosomon was no fool though. A direct attack would be the most obvious one for the wizard to counter, which is why she set that task for the B team. She had another team already attacking secretly, via the destruction of more chaos devices at the bottom of dungeons. Elsewhere at an ancient quarry, the elemental scourge Deimos cried out in horror as it fell to this trio of adventurers, their white haired leader grinning while saying "I love it when a plan comes together!" Hannibal, Murdoch and Baracus are... the A Team.

Getting rid of foolish scourges all across the land!

Insight: The "Dungeon Crawl" variant follows the same story and rules as the base game using chaos as time pressure. I believe the only difference is that you don't have to go attack the dark spire at the end.

For the King: Keys and Tentacles

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Given their initial success, the three Enderalians were sent onto the city of Parid to collect pieces of a key to enter the King's Maze. While the first two are easy enough to collect (though one held by a mindflayer mindlord was more challenging), the third is off shore somewhere on the Rogue Isles. Fortunately, Fahrul boating was back in business and could sell the party a small raft to brave the seas. What they didn't count on was running into the legendary Kraken!

Uh oh! This little raft can't take something of that size!

The beast easily destroys their craft and shipwrecks the trio at some unforgiving swamp which happens to be the home of the Bandit King, one of the scourges of the land who makes everything twice as expensive as they should be! Calia makes quick work of him in combat and with prices back to normal, they are able to buy another raft upon reaching civilization and easily find the final key to unlock the King's Maze and manage to defeat the monsters within, destroying another major chaos device.

This one deactivates the shield around the dark spire, prompting its owner - the ex-court wizard - to magically broadcast a message to the Queen and her champions: "Killing your king was just the beginning! All of Fahrul will soon fall to chaos! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Queen Rosomon sighed as this was typical of one who has gone mad with power. In this case their... 8th court wizard? Honestly, she had lost count.

Insight: A dead character can be revived by spending a life point or using a sanctum, which will take the death instead of the character should they reach 0 HP. Life points can be replenished via quest rewards, visiting fountains of life or winning at the dark carnival. That last option is very risky though.

For the King: The Cult of Chaos

[Part of the Cursed story line]

The mood was dour that night at Oarton as Hildebrandt announced "The King is dead and we need your help to find the responsible party. By the Queen's grace, this is your chance to earn your citizenship."  The three female foreign refugees before him bowed, each capable in their own right: Calia the warrior, Esme the bard and Dijaam the smuggler. Hildebrandt distrusted Dijaam the most as she was just let out of jail for this very mission, but he accepted the Queen's will.

Geared and given a purpose the trio headed out into the forest where Esme shared her suspicions about a new cult she heard rumors of. "No one calling themselves the Cult of Chaos could be up to any good!"

Those robes also reek of evil.

It wasn't long before they found a group of said cultists and followed him back into a nearby mine filled with all sorts of creatures guarding a large device at the bottom that was generating some form of dark energy. Without hesitation, Calia destroyed it with her heavy hammer. In that instant a powerful spell of invisibility was deactivated, letting everyone see an ominous dark spire in the far distance... and one the trio would easily spot upon returning to the surface.

"That's new," mused Dijaam. Calia nodded.

"Whoever owns that probably knows who killed the king."

Insight: Prices to buy gear or services goes up each time you complete a quest. Buy pipe upgrades and godsbeard early!

Enderal: Explosive Finale

[Part of the Cursed story line]

After explaining the situation to Calia we decide to hedge our bets on the best way to save the world. Two of the less damaged Arps, who aren't goblins at all but puppets, are re-awoken using the soul gems of Pahtira (who has been listening to everything from my pack the whole time) and Goliath, both happy to be mobile again.

I tell them that they will be the ones using the escape pods to fly up to Starcity as that is where their knowledge of machines will be best served. Meanwhile Calia will take a shortcut to the Myrad towers to fly across the sea to warn the other countries and give them all the knowledge we gained.

As for me, I would need to destroy the Beacon. After a tearful farewell with Calia, I returned to the Sun Temple with the two Arps following behind. Taranor's forces had broken in, but he along with everyone else who wasn't already dead lay twitching and burning from inside. The Arps get to the escape pods and fly off while I walk up to the Beacon, finding Tealor lying on top of it, still believing he did something good.

There is only one thing to do now...

I wait as long as I can to give Calia time to flee before using the Blind Miner's axe to destroy the Beacon's power source and causing a continent sized explosion. Hah. Dying to save the entire world. If only the matron mother at Ust Natha could see me n... *KABOOM!*

Insight: What a cool game! I've obviously skipped a bunch of stuff and changed a few things to condense the story so I highly recommend experiencing Enderal for yourself! Maybe you'll make different choices than I did? I also didn't even touch a number of their custom skill trees nor did I visit every location on the map.

Enderal: History Repeating

[Part of the Cursed story line]

I don't know how far I've fallen when I come to, but it's nothing a healing potion or two can't fix. Following a single tunnel I come across a massive chamber housing a huge, unfinished and immobile "Goliath" robot. Like that incident with Pahtira, This one is also inhabited by a person - one who has survived countless Cycles in the machine body as the Cleansing (last part) skips non-flesh organisms.

This thing is massive.

It also reveals that what starts the Cleansing is always the same: activating the Beacon without the Numinos! Just as it has happened many times before - it was happening right now. The robot says there are only two choices left for me: to flee back to the Starcity via the escape pods we used prior, or to destroy the Beacon which would limit the destruction from being world wide to just being the continent of Enderal.

As a final request, it asks that I shut him down so that he finally "dies" but too late do I realize this is a trick, as his consciousness begins to swap bodies with my own! Luckily Calia arrives to save me just in time. This angers the Goliath who then uses his own creations: Arps, to try kill us. This does not go well for them or for him, as by the end - he is the one lying broken from an explosion.

Insight: The glowy suicide bomb Arps were killing me instantly if they got into melee, make sure you kill them at range!

Enderal: Numinos

[Part of the Cursed story line]

The wisps and specters in the vault tunnels are easily navigated to reach the Undercity which is in chaos. People infected by red madness, looters and a contingent of tough Nehrimise all have to be dealt with before we reach a collapsed tunnel that Yuslan reopens.

This leads deep down into the lost city we are looking for and it is full of stairs, corpses burned from within and lost ones, including a ghost dragon who collapses the ceiling and separating Calia from the group. Tealor, Yuslan and I push on and at an ancient Beacon, find the Numinos. Doesn't the fact that we found it here means it didn't work?

It's the perfect place for a knife in the back.

It doesn't matter because Yuslan gets to it first and reveals that he too is a traitor, and is the one that let the Nehrimise into the city the first time - all because Tealor killed his family long ago. He also admits to killing Lishari as she was too close to the truth before using himself as a human bomb to destroy the Numinos, a final act of revenge.

I take the brunt of the blaze as Tealor uses me as a human shield. With no way to stop the cycle now, the grand master is resolute in activating the Beacon as is - which is just going to be one huge explosion to take down the Nehrimise with everyone else. I try to grab his leg to stop him but he just stomps me down through the wooden floor.

Insight: The Nehrimise and the Lost Ones at the temple stairs are strong and in big numbers. Hanging back and sniping from the shadows works well provided you brought enough ammo with you.

Enderal: Loyalties

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Warping back to Ark, Calia and I report to Tealor and then share an enjoyable evening while we still can. The following day I am tasked with helping Yuslan to decode the map and finds that it points to the last place a Beacon was used, centuries ago. In the city deep beneath Ark itself!

This revelation is interrupted when a bunch of Keepers attempt to sabotage the current Beacon and while they are stopped, their other traitorous compatriots have let the Nehrimise army into Ark in exchange for a truce, one Taranor is unlikely to keep for long.

The end times are a bloody business.

With the temple being the final stronghold, Tealor assembles a squad composed of Calia, Yuslan and myself to use the tunnels of the old vault to descend into the Undercity and beyond to find the Numinos. Everyone else just has to hold position. As there is no beating the Nehrimise now, it is his hope we can still use the Beacon to end the Cycle before they can get through. All Calia and I can think of is finding a way to escape the madness while we are down there.

Insight: There's a handy "point of no return" message, so get everything you need done before accepting.

Enderal: Contingencies Activated

[Part of the Cursed story line]

It doesn't take long for Kurmai to wander off in the facility and by the time we find him he has lost his mind, blaming us for the absence of his people and activating the defenses of Starcity - all the machinations previously dormant power up, including a robot dragon that uses its laser beam to blast Kurmai into little bits.

Calia and I are the only ones to make it back indoors, fighting through robots and eventually stumble into an electricity trap. Luckily Jespar saves us by opening a nearby access panel that leads to the maintenance tunnels, stating that he's the only survivor from the outside team too as the dragon mech destroyed the airship!

Calia and Jespar, back to back.

Fortunately the tunnels lead to a library of sorts where we learn about a possible location of a Numinos as well as an old map pointing out it's location. We then use a spherical escape pod each (these Starlings thought of everything) which crash back down to the snowy region of Enderal. While Calia and I emerge unscathed, Jespar is not so lucky.

Insight: The mech dragon is a plot enemy rather than a regular enemy, so just expect to be running a lot when it shows up.

Enderal: Mile High

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Kurmai's flying boat is short a few materials so Tealor's advisor Yuslan and I are sent to retrieve said components - myrading out to Duneville and making our way up to the ravaged lands of Thalgard to do so. Thalgard is home to particularly nasty enemies, having been exposed to a huge magical explosion from an experiment gone wrong ages ago.

Our mission is a success, and after a few more hours of installation a crew is assembled to go with Kurmai to the Starcity which includes both Jespar and Calia while Tealor and Yuslan see us off. During the long flight Calia finally gives into my charms and I let her experience all I learned from the lust chambers at Ust Natha. I knew those would come in handy!

The need to defy gravity is so strong in this place.

Refreshed, we arrive at the spectacular floating city but find it abandoned which rattles Kurmai a fair deal as he believed his people were waiting for him here. Jespar and some of the crew remain to guard the ship while a small away team including Calia and myself follow Kurmai to search for any mention of a Numinos.

Insight: Thalgard is the Chernobyl of Enderal and has some high radiation of arcane fever, especially if you go to the original blast site called the Sunfire. Bring potions of ambrosia.

Enderal: Ark Siege

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Once Calia is being tended to, I hand in the stones which start to power up the Beacon. Alas at that very moment the Nehrimise decide to attack the city so I go with Grandmaster Tealor himself to fight through the infiltrators and push back their regular infantry to retake the outer gate. During this, Tealor also executes the traitor Squad Leader Jorek, who helped the Nehrimise gain entry.

With the city re-secured, we quickly head back to the Beacon but learn that activating it now will just end up killing everyone. It needs one more part, a "Numinos" to work safetly and the lead to find it comes in a most surprising form: crazy Kurmai the egg collector!

During the siege he was caught trying to steal material from the Keeper's headquarters to complete his flying ship to reach the Star City, which according to the researchers would be the best repository of knowledge to find a Numinos. I would have said it was far fetched, had I not already been inside a crashed star ship previously. At his workshop we find that his air ship is almost complete!

All these people wanting to be birds is absurd.

Insight: Tealor is ubertough and can kill all the enemies by himself if you prefer to just afk in a corner somewhere. Also, massive plot hole in that you'd think the Nehrimese would just get a bunch of "teleport to Ark" scrolls and open the gates again. :P

Enderal: What they do in the Shadows

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Calia has a lead on the final stone so I journey with her up to a well fortified castle in the mountains that was once the home of a renowned healer. It's obvious from the scattered research notes and the amount of lost ones that at some point he stopped being a healer and became more of a mad scientist though, apparently using the black stone on his dead child to revive her.

While exploring the castle we get separated by a portcullis shut by some crafty mercenaries that were shadowing us to take the artifact for themselves. Calia is captured easily, and she becomes their plaything for a time while I continue the mission and collect the stone. Turns out resurrection by black stone has a side effect - it gives the person a "shadow form monster". It's pretty clear that this child was Calia herself.

She did not have a good time.

Upon returning to her, I find the portcullis blasted open and Calia stripped naked and unconscious. Pieces of the merc crew lie scattered everywhere in pools of blood and things that shouldn't be on fire somehow are. Guess they didn't know who they were fucking with, literally. I wrap Calia up in a blanket and take both her and the stone back to the safety of Ark.

Insight: It just occurs to me this game is kinda dark. I'd better stop recommending it to younger people. :P

Enderal: Teammates

[Part of the Cursed story line]

With the bandits dead and Calia having disarmed the traps, Lishari's crew is able to descend to do their work. Since everything is under control here we head back to a myrad tower where I run into Esme, who is about to go do something stupid and/or dangerous. I volunteer to assist while Calia myrads back to Ark to report in.

We sneak into the Dark Valley, taking down the numerous Lost Ones and a random huge werewolf wandering within until we reach the haunted ruins of Castle Bleakstar that is inhabited by one stubborn phantom. Once it's dispelled we find proof that Tara may have fallen in with some nefarious cult with clues suggesting they moved to a location near Duneville. I hope it's not that suicide crew I found before.

Esme, you can't sneak with a lit torch...

Esme myrads ahead as I receive word of another urgent mission for the Keepers. This time I'm partnered up with Jespar to try retrieve knowledge from an eccentric artist at his distant, puppet-filled manor with specific instructions NOT to use violence at all. A small detour on the way to the manor rewards me with... a dragon fight!

Insight: Unlike Calia, Esme isn't a great fighter or tank. In fact, all she's good at is giving away your position to the enemy so expect to do some heavy lifting and prep health potions before hand.

Enderal: You're F-Hired!

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Returning from Duneville I manage to wrap up a number of lose ends at Ark - completing a relic collection for the SHOES guild, an egg collection for crazy Kurmai who wants to start an aviary in his floating "Star City", and the ingredients to reproduce the poison Mael was interested in - but not before first warning his rival Dijaam that she's under suspicion. Since she confronts Mael directly about it, I promptly get fired from the Golden Sickle.

Just as well as right after Calia and I get promoted into the Keeper guild, and Grandmaster Tealor puts us to work immediately - sending us to assist a nearby dig crew to retrieve an ancient artifact. Turns out this crew is led by Lishari, and her progress into the site is being held up by trap savvy bandits who have made a home of this place.

I happen to stumble into one - a giant pit but luckily land deep water. From there I can work my way back up, assassinating the entrenched bandits as I go. Only their leader gets the drop on me but Calia, who also fell into the pit but managed to hang onto something to find a different exit, shows up just in time to save me - using her menacing "shadow form"? She later explains that she has some other being in her that comes out to kill people from time to time.

More than just a pretty face.

Insight: Even without her shadow form, Calia is a decent tank and does good damage with her two handed sword so let her take point in combat. Comparatively Tharael does more damage with his twin swords but can't take many hits.

Enderal: Selection by Drinking

[Part of the Cursed story line]

While selling the loot from the deep ruin, I run into the mage Firespark again who suggests that the Grandmaster of the Keepers (the religious-militant order here) is interested in me joining their ranks and if I'm interested, should join the try-outs at a nearby Myrad tower.

I decide to do just that, meeting up with squad leader Jorek and recruits Dunwar and Calia. They aren't thrilled that an out lander like me is doing the trial, and are even less so when I rope them into helping take down a bounty nearby.

As expected, this is a stupid ritual.

Apart from fighting a few pus beetles and Dunwar executing a person with Red Madness on the road, we easily reach the "holy test site" which simply involves drinking a hallucinogenic potion. I awake back in Ark, which according to the also awake Calia is a sign that I passed the test. Dunwar on the other hand never wakes up. Turns out failure is death.

I make a note that my first suggestion for this order is that they remove the "pilgrimage" part of the test. That's just idiotic.

Insight: Pus beetle spit puts a poison stack on you. Having multiple stacks can kill you quickly so evade! On the flip side, drinking multiple health potions at once will heal you faster than consuming one at a time.