Eador: Pendrainne and the Lich

[Part of the Masters of Eador story.]

The mage Pendrainne and scout Farcol are sent to the next unclaimed land, a large desert one that also interests Oinor, Vianta, and Stenriya due to some mystic gear being present there. Pendrainne finds it in dwarven lands near Nesturs citadel, so he takes it by force before evicting the other masters off the shard.

At this point Lan'sharr the lich, another master, appears and openly declares his goal of exterminating all life while looking for allies. In his view masters don't count as "life", just their subjects. In response, Nesturs immediately send Pendrainne and the scout Slitt to kill the lich on his own shard and is surprisingly supported by Vianta who sends aid in the form of resources and troops: dryads and fairies.

Lich logic is awesome.

Lan'sharr has great defenses though. Driven by madness, the wizard Orongull now served the lich along with six powerful minotaurs at his castle. It was a bloody battle, with Slitt assassinating Orongull before being dismembered by the bull men. Pendrainne's forces met a similar fate, but the wizard still claimed victory with 1 HP remaining. That was all he needed to destroy Lan'sharr once and for all.

Eador: Exploding Units are the Worst

[Part of the Masters of Eador story.]

The scout, Dynrigg is sent to the next shard against Beleth's forces where he enlists the aid of dryads, fairies and finding that most of this land is faithful almost to the point of zealotry to "the Lord of Light". Since they still view Nesturs as "good" they do let Dynrigg pass through, but aren't as friendly to Beleth's evil champion.

Poison damages all opponents!

Dynrigg eventually lays siege to Beleth's stronghold there, and despite catastrophic losses to centaurs allied to the necromancer, the scout is successful, partially thanks to his success in poisoning their water supply before the battle but mostly thanks to the exploding gargoyles he learned to summon during his time with Archmage Kelaide.

Meanwhile in the void, another master appears - the barbarian Doh-Gor who wields a powerful magic amulet. He openly states his intent on destroying Nesturs. Soon.

Sacred: Marathon

[Part of the Sacred Journey.]

Much like the previous forest, this one also is shielded by magic to prevent anything from escaping so my first task is to break that spell. Fortunately only the dryad druids have the paralysis spell while the rest of the dryads are mostly bow users with the slightly less annoying ability of being able to phase jump away as soon as you get close. Since I was just running past that didn't really bug me too much, at least not until I got to the cave where the shield was coming from.

With shadow demons galore and ent like things that also could entangle me, it was another slow slog to reach the second floor. The only up side was that the dryads were fighting them too so I could actually pass a few groups by. Eventually I found the source of the shield, a big demon named Hoth-Yotsog who once again drained my potion supply to empty.

Phew, for a minunte I thought it was this guy!

Upon its defeat I was free to leave to destroy the next gate, which I could sense was in some distant ash mountain so I needed to get running, and boy what a long run it was. Out of the cave, out of the forest, along the cliff past more giant bugs. I must have missed my turn off at some point though because exhausted and bemused, I found myself back at the city of Purgatori.

Sacred: Volcano Island

[Part of the Sacred Journey.]

Upon arrival at the Volcano Island we were greeted by ex-captain Vernon and a whole slew of his undead crew. After dispatching them he begged for his undead life, asking me to find three pieces of a necklace to... I zoned out at that point. I don't fricking negotiate with the undead - much less undead that just tried to kill me. After smashing his face into dust I proceeded into the volcano itself where the rather pleasant undead were replaced by Mohkva and those irritating Shadow Demons.

That's what ye get for refusin ta parley!

Fortunately it was a small underground zone and as expected the pirates turned on me since the demon was actually based in their treasure chamber. After killing them all I proceeded in to face yet another Sakkara demon. I'm beginning to wonder why I needed to create that gem to beat the first one if they seem to be so common now. Anyway with it dead I hop into the warp gate it is guarding and land right beside the Subkari demon on the other side. Good thing I brought a lot of potions!

With the gate shut I found myself now trapped in a cave full of shadow demons and had to navigate my way out, slowly. The Mohkva's here have taken to riding the giant bugs from before so now they are twice as annoying. Great. Eventually I find stairs out and onto a high walkway above the forest which turns out to be the home of the dryads. Huzzah! Safety! Well no, of course the dryads are also hostile. *face palm*