Battle Brothers: Supply Line

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

Having made enemies of all the mountain towns of House Grimmund, the Spears spend some time back in the low lands - defending the Western border against goblin raiders who now come mounted on wolves. Pioyer loses an eye in one such skirmish.

Damn their pointy pikes!

After some days they are asked to help a large and important supply caravan reach Gerwold - the town they helped take earlier. As such Faltran and Big Mike feel indebted to do the task. It's smooth sailing at first until they reach the foot hills where a large and well equipped bandit force ambushes them.

Kamots is clubbed to death from behind and Sir Julien is beheaded before the bandits are fought off. The survivors then have to deal with a Grimmund militia force also sent to stop the caravan. While the militia captain is fantastic in keeping his forces from fleeing, they simply don't have the equipment to win the battle.

Finally the caravan reaches Gerwold, and the Spears are paid. Thanks to their now glorious name, the veteran knight and survivor of horrors, Sunbro Forever joins the company. Big Mike, also now recovered fully from Hoggart's torture, decides to take up arms on the field beside the men he commands.

Battle Brothers: Davkul is Coming

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

Finding another necromantic ruin in the swamp, Majorn is pleased when he and the Spears wipe out the zombies and their necromaster while suffering only minor wounds against a force twice their number. While camped, Fanatic converts Kamots to the cult of Davkul which leads to blows against Sahkarov who still had hope for the poor fisherman. Not anymore.

I'll beat the heresy out of you!

By happenstance the company also runs into a blood sacrifice to Davkul on the way back to town. The man, another cultist named Mole, is bleeding and speared to the ground but not yet gone. Gander removes the spears while Fanatic urges him to join the Spears so he does.

To combat the growing number of cultists in the ranks, Big Mike recruits Raven Fatbastard - a merchant business acquaintance of Sid as well as Emile the thief and Bes, a retired soldier. Together they defeat more bandits and wolf packs. On their journeys Faltran notices House Grimmund forces taking Wiesendorf village from House Folsach. Mike reminds all of them to march on and to not get involved.

Luckily they run into a troupe of traveling performers whom Sir Julien convinces to perform for free. This greatly raises in the morale of the troops.

Battle Brothers: Filling the Ranks

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

Fox, a caravan hand, joins the Spears and earns his place early as he manages to slay the bandit leader "Roderick the Slaughterer". In the same battle Sid loses a finger to a crossbow bolt, and has an elbow broken by Roderick, leaving him less effective in combat. The peddler is just happy to be alive.

That would sting.

Gander is named Sergeant shortly after, for his high resolve, and Kamots shares a story of his past revealing he is not that bright. Sahkarov takes it upon himself to try teach him, but fails and is left dissatisfied.

A few bandits (35+ since they are getting paid by head), courier deliveries and direwolf hunts later the Spears recruit a dangerous looking man named Stargazer and the disowned noble Sir Julien, who apparently was disgraced by losing his forces overseas.

They also help a deserter, William Beardguy, escape from the soldiers looking for him - in return he joins the Spears, claiming he had left due to money issues. Big Mike assures him he won't have that problem working for the Spears.

Dragon's Dogma: Now You See Me

Adventures of Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

After the disastrous events last time, it was a good change of pace to have a simple quest in Cassardis in the form of helping the moronic Valmiro pack a boat for his "great" adventure, but once he had set sail it was back to the capital for some serious business! After switching to the "Magic Archer" class (because shooting heat seeking mana arrows is fun!) Ser Fedel and his aides Margel the warrior and Cedric the mage joined the party to hunt down a thieving ex-court mage and his band of hired thugs.

The wizard played a bit of whack-a-mole with all his teleporting around, but too bad for him he kept going to where my Port Crystals were and was put down very easily. We are then also tasked to aid Captain Mercedes handle a rebellion in that Northern Fort much to her disdain, asking me to stay out of her way. I oblige, deciding to take a back seat in the proceedings. Her forces do pretty well, taking down a Cockatrice en route to the fort and hold their own against the renegade soldiers. Not that I let them, because I'm bloodthirsty like that.

This band is led by Ser Julien who Captain Mercedes challenges to a duel. Julien prefers to fight me but Mercedes insists that I sit out of it so... fine. The silly Captain ends up losing to Julien's mace, and is only spared so that she can be whored to the rest of his forces. Lucky for her, he the "rest of his forces" are all dead. Content he has weakened this continent enough (which is why he helped Salvation in the first place), he withdraws back to his own country, and Captain Mercedes shamefully does the same. I suppose I could go chase them but via game magic all of them just vanish from the fort. Guess they all had port crystals too?

Or maybe Julien just *really* likes goats.

Dragon's Dogma: Audience Gathering

Adventures of Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

I've finally gained enough fame to get an audience with the Duke it seems, who invites me to his castle where I meet all the other Wyrm hunt knights which include Ser Fedel the investigator, Ser Julien the "you have no proof I am a traitor" and the now recovered Captain Mercedes. The Duke himself seems a bit crazy, and I suspect it is his dwarf jester that driving him insane. Highlight of the evening is meeting the Duchess Aelinore though who seems to fall in love with me at first sight? That can't end well.

The duke's steward gives me more things to do such as hunt a Griffon, slay another Salvation necromancer in the catacombs, and aid in the trial of rich, bald-guy Fournival. Supposedly he's doing shady stuff so we go about finding proof of his innocence and or guilt which is as easy as talking to people in town, or more challenging - escorting eye witnesses from other forts as suggested by Ingvard.

Griffons look awesome by the way.

I am disappointed that the wandering merchant Reynard who I had saved so long ago from goblins actually sells falsified testimonies of all sorts, as he feels it should be allowed to manipulate the law into how one sees fit. Someone like that who only is after profit is a person who doesn't deserve to exist in the world, so I joyously finish what I interrupted those goblins from doing long ago, and kill the bastard.

Dragon's Dogma: No Salvation

Adventures of Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

Upon returning the slates to Ser Maximillian, he gives us our next assignment of infiltrating attacking a Cult of the Dragon Salvation meeting taking place in the not so nearby catacombs and A peasant chubby lady named Sara volunteers to guide us there. Right outside the city gate there is a brief encounter where the city guards are trying to save a merchant wagon from goblins which should have been an easy fight, until a griffon comes along and wrecks everyone. Only my team, including the peasant lady, survives as the Griffon takes the dead Ox and flies off mid combat.

I'm curious why these are nocturnal.

Our journey then takes us through a creepy forest, and since night falls as we traverse it we are beset by numerous undead, including the fat "boomer" type that self explodes. One such creature explodes Sara into many directions. Fortunately Lily knows the way too, so we get to the catacombs and fight through even more of the walking dead to the second level where a surprise ogre manages to kill Monterrey by suiciding into a bottomless chasm, with her attached.

Soon after we find the Salvation meeting point and witness that Ser Julien is here, but he runs off as soon as our presence is made known. The ugly leader guy then kills all the gathered members and reanimates them into zombies to fight us, which is really dumb as from experience they are all much weaker than the generic bandits. Alas the ugly leader escapes but at least we open up a shortcut much nearer to Gran Soren for our return trip.

Dragon's Dogma: Vocational Dangers

Adventures of Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

After sealing up the Everfall (by putting a padlock I imagine, or maybe a sturdy 2x4 against the door), Ser Maximillian of the Duke's guard offers me to join the "Wyrm Hunt", which is more like a fancy way of asking for my help in investigating the return of the dragon to this land. I say sure, recruit myself a ranger names Ferris to replace my previously eaten, now certainly being digested team mate and then switch my vocation from fighter to assassin, because they get to use bows. I also switch Rose from mage to sorcerer, which is pretty much "mage with bigger spells".

The Wyrm Hunt investigation includes tracking down a spy in the Duke's court, one who supposedly works for the cult of "Salvation" - dragon worshipers who welcome the end. So, Cult of the Dragon exists here too. Check. Following said spy is pretty easy since he stands out like a sore thumb. More interesting is that this spy, Ser Julien, meets with the busty merchant Madeline as his contact. I just report this to Ser Maximillian who says he'll handle it.

She's that kind of girl.

Our next task involves recovering old slates from the Watergod Altar cave which hides behind a waterfall. While there's nothing overly strong in there the resident saurians remind me that there is no swimming (for humans) in this game, especially when one drags Ser Berne and Ferris to a watery grave. The lizardmen obviously can swim, but aren't very agile in the water making them easy targets for Rose's new spells.