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: 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.