Battle Brothers: Graveless Dead

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

Fortunately with the truce, traveling through House Grimmund's lands isn't bad - while the towns increase their prices due to the Spears involvement in the noble war, at least their soldiers are also more keen on fighting the undead than holding grudges.

On the march the company avoids wandering groups of undead and nachzerers until they start climbing the higher mountains of the North. There they meet Alfgeir the crusader who asks to join them in their virtuous quest - Gander readily agrees. Not much farther they find the ruined site of the artifact, guarded by a large force of skeletons.

Those backline pike skeletons are dangerous!

With long axes at the ready, the front line shield wall serves as a distraction while the heavy weapons flank the more dangerous spear men. This works well, until the shield wall breaks and everything goes to hell as people forget how to fight. Raz and Gillian are downed. Craizee is killed, reanimates and backstabs Alfgeir, slaying the crusader. With morale teetering on the brink, Gander orders a retreat - abandoning his fallen allies.

They would be the first four (of the currently thirty two losses) he could not dig graves for since joining the Spears of the Church.

Battle Brothers: The Siege of Wiesendorf

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

By the time the company reaches Wiesendorf, it is already under siege by zombies. Fortunately Sir Donatus Donbert and his men are already there thinning the herd. After the easy fight, Donatus bids the Spears good luck as he has orders to protect another town further East. The Spears and the local militia hunker down to build defenses.

I suppose it's a little like the opening intro for Neverwinter Online.

It's not long till the next wave arrives, skeleton warriors who - while fortunately don't reanimate when slain - are much better fighters than the zombies. Gander's trauma from the earlier vampire encounter flares up here, and due to him fleeing Gillian suffers a broken elbow and a diseased wound while R4W3C is shield bashed off his high ground, right into a skeleton swarm who hack him to pieces.

There is not much of a rest after breaking that wave when the next arrives, even more skeletons who are better equipped. The local militia die in droves as the Spears scramble with armor and shield breaking axes. Kruglov is impaled by an ancient spear man through the heart.

Defeating them only leads to the final wave of undead with even more skeleton warriors and pikemen. With all the militia dead (and re-killed thanks to zombification) the Spears throw everything they have with Sunbro earning his keep in kills. In the battle, Tolik is cut down, Majorn sacrifices himself (bleeds out) to slay the final spearman, and Faltran is disemboweled.

Battle Brothers: The Nightmare Begins

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

After a nightmarish sleep, Gander is woken up at the tavern by Stargazer who says refugees from all over are claiming the dead are rising across the land. Behind him are the new recruits, Agdan, a cultist friend of Fanatic and Sir Erland an adventurous noble and his squires Gillian Laddersmith and Reimund the Secret Son, a bastard child of the King. Not so secret if it's in his name I guess.

Nightmares involving Rome?

They immediately report in to Faltran, who is still deep in his cups, and decides to ignore the undead threat to do training missions instead: catching thieves and escorting a caravan both proving to be easy. They also accompany Sir Erland's friend Sir Siegfried Baranor of House Ruhmolt and his troops in hunting another nachzerer swarm in the swamp which again is relatively safe given the number of allies.

The newbies do pretty well, despite the "surprise" that any slain human raises as a zombie now and a small altercation between Raven and Sir Erland on who gets to eat first - low born or high born. Faltran lets them sort it out with their fists. Unconvinced by their new commander, Majorn has a quiet discussion with him and Gander or the duty of every living person to fight the undead.

His words took root because not a day later the Spears accepted a contract to defend the town of Wiesendorf from an undead horde marching towards it.

Darkest Dungeon: The Precipice of Oblivion

Reports from Darkest Dungeon - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

Field Report A127 - Expeditions into the manor, which locals term "the Darkest Dungeon" continue today. Elizabeth's team, which included Lee, Gwyndolin and my dear friend Dr. Shen did not fare better than Dieannin Avery's. Only the woman escaped. To her credit her mind is in better condition than his when he returned to the hamlet. The way was cleared by team three with Blunder Buss, Big Mike, Lu Lingqi and Catharina though. As I understand it, Blunder Buss played a pivotal role in destroying the shambler that had devoured so many of our number. His earlier fault is widely regarded as redeemed.

Begone, vile fiend!

Party Girl, Gillian, Yuria and the Paleshade entered the second sub basement and discovered even more horrific creatures below - scorpion men? Fortunately they took my advice of taking the relics Big Mike's team discovered with the shambler which protected them from many of their attacks. With the way lit, the path is ready for my squad to enter the third floor. I am afraid, but also excited to see what discoveries I will find down there.

-Dr. Vahlen

Darkest Dungeon: Leave Nothing Unchecked

Reports from Darkest Dungeon - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

Field Report A85 - Examining the source of reanimation is proving difficult with the equipment available here and the old laboratory is certainly being missed. Resorted to more basic chemistry instead. Accompanied Elizabeth, Gillian and Lee into the ruins earlier where we defeated the Necromancer Lord. Strangely, he like all the other necromancers are also cadavers already, meaning the dead were resurrecting the dead in an endless cycle. His decomposition did not make him immune to the stunning effects of my potions however.

Charming to those she calls.

A beguiling siren at the cove also suffered injuries incompatible with life when Elizabeth, Techno Viking, the "cats" as well as the very creepy Londor Paleshade hunted it down. At the weald, Big Mike led a team comprised of Gwyndolin, Agdan and Catharina to destroy a larger brigand cannon before it could threaten this hamlet. The low morale after the bandit raid has improved greatly after these events. Considering taking up Dr. Shen's offer of trying whatever liquor the local tavern holds to join in the celebration.

Maybe after I finish this autopsy...

-Dr. Vahlen

Dark Souls II: Earth Mover

Tales from Dark Souls - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

Balor (erm I mean the old iron king), is a ridiculously simple fight with easily readable moves yet he still manages to 1HKO Manhunter O'Harrah and knock me into the instadeath lava lake half a dozen times. I finally win but am frustrated that it took me so many attempts. Using the bonfire just past him scares the bejeezus out of me though since it explodes as a shrubbery appears to tell me "I'm interesting" then goes away. WTF? Ok to be fair, he also speaks a little bit about King Vendrick, who "almost" claimed the throne. Whatever that means.

Hello Mr. Jump Scare!

There's also another shrine teleporter here which leads to more locked doors so I return to Majula where I find a new, stout fella named Gillian sitting by the pit. He claims to be a laddersmith so I pay him a fair bit of souls for his longest ladder. This pays off in that it leads to a key! Not to the locked doors in the lava lake but to the locked doors beyond the lair of the Rotten!

I sure hope he decides to land.

Following the path down I find myself in a huge cavern which houses the ancient Sanctum City. The Mayan temple in the distance is a nice touch. This place is guarded by giant, poisonous skeleton warriors, corrosive bugs, and more poison shooting statues - these ones actually move since they ride little turtles! Even cooler is that the city landscape changes upon hitting switches (which I accidentally discovered during combat). Whole buildings move to form or reveal new paths. Best of all, there's a great white dragon down here. I suspect I'll be fighting him eventually!