Battle Brothers: The Hungry Mountains (Part II)

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

While resting at town, most of the men are amused to watch Lapp help a boy get his cat out of a tree with his pet rat. He-Alve is not one of them, and Big Mike notices him getting the shakes thanks to his spartan diet (he eats very little). Mike forces He-Alve to eat a full meal which makes him physically better, but less happy with Mike's leadership.

Big Mike needn't have worried though, as during the next direwolf hunt in the mountains, Sid's cowardice left He-Alve, fattened as he was, to be wolf food. He is replaced by Tartarus the flagellant pilgrim, just in time to attack Red Eagles Den of bandits.

Aguila Roja (Red Eagle) is actually a Spanish show.
Has anyone watched it?

These ones are definitely better armed than the previous rabble the Spears have faced and put up a difficult fight as they hold the superior high ground. Lapp catches a throwing axe to the carotid artery (a fatal wound) while DogHow is gutted in battle. King, the dog, is also slain as he tries to run down the enemy archers.

Despite the losses, the battle is a victory, which inspired Pioyer the vagabond and R4W3C the farmer to join the Spears. For all his years of command, Big Mike isn't sure he'll ever get used to losing people.

Battle Brothers: Matters of Morale

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

With the company finding their footing once more, refilling the ranks became the first ambition the companions agreed on. To this end they sailed to the busy port of Holnisland to recruit: S***A, DogHow and Lapp the rat catchers, Paleshade of Londor and Arpalan the student and "Sid" Sidorivich the manic peddler - who quickly attempts to sell Lapp a rat!

Big Mike is careful to choose the easy pay contracts of courier work and on the one occasion they run into bandits, he times it that another merc group called the Cold Hands are there to assist.

He knew they couldn't evade the danger for too long though, and sure enough the next contract - to retrieve the Elderstone from a burial site in the mountains leads to problems when the skeletons there awake and chant "the false king must die".

Followed by "Trick or Treat"?

It is a scary battle, and Arpalan not yet finding his feet in combat is stabbed fatally by a spear wielding skellie. The rest of the company is injured but victorious. Big Mike decides to get their mind off their fallen comrade by immediately attacking a small bandit hideout and decimating it easily.

This trick works, which results in the original three Spears having a greater respect for the man.

Dark Souls III: Cardio is Important

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

Lapp is here at the bonfire too, apparently he is looking for a cleansing monument of some sort to restore his memory. I tell him I'll keep an eye out, but due to the next section being filled with scary flame sword knights, giant thorn knights, and turtle man priests I go back to my old tactic of running and dodging past everything! The theme of "Going Down" continues here and I ultimately end up in a large swamp, being chased by another dragonslayer armor!  My pretty good sprint is ended by unexpected dragon fire though, as a large black dragon does a fantastic job of covering his stone bridge from intruders.

Crispy Pata. Ow.

It takes a few goes before I find the nearby bonfire which makes scouting the swamp much easier. More importantly it lets me work out the timing of the bridge crossing which leads me straight into a skeleton filled catacomb. The Moaning Knight invades here but I never actually encounter him since I move too quickly through the area and to the other end of the catacomb where again the dragon blocks my path.

In true Dark Souls style there is no "going around", its all timing, dodging and blocking. I manage to axe a dragon toe or two as I run past it into the next building which simply opens a shortcut back to an earlier bonfire of the area. Yup, all of this was pretty much to open a locked gate! To be fair it also opens the path to the church that I've been trying to reach since getting here. Little did I know of the boss waiting inside.

Dark Souls III: Panic Power

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

After dealing with the angels I find a giant pit where two large flaming demons await. I don't get very far on my own, but luckily I am able to enlist Lapp and "the not yet dead afterall" Slave Knight Gael to assist in handling the aggro and defeating the phase 2, laser blasting demon prince that spawns from the corpse of one of the dead bosses.

Axe-ing open some demon noggin!

One familiar demon transportation ride later I am taken to the very awesome looking Ringed City and encounter its first guardian, an undead giant who summons an army of ghost archers! At the same time I am invaded by Juliet of Astora who uses these unmoving ghosts to slay a Blue Sentinel who comes to my aid. Knowing my lack of PvP experience I withdraw back behind some cover a top a spiraling stair where Juliet knows I'm planning a trap - but cannot see me, so resorts to gesture insults, one benefit of no in game chat I guess.

I wait till she's close and with two hands on my axe I run out early, timing it as she is coming up, which elicits the panic response I am hoping for. I manage to nick her too with my wild swinging but her own dodge is what ends her as it sends her off the broken stair and plummeting to a messy, insta death. Not what I had planned, but I'll take it! Using timing, a calm approach and the supplied cover lets me get through the ghost firing squad and survive attacks from a handful of weak assassins beyond. The next bonfire is right there.

Good thing those ghost arrows can't go through solid stone. Lol!

Dark Souls III: Laser Angels

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

Disorientation gives way to a familiar, spiraling landscape of cities crumbling in on each other as an angry black sun looks down. Looks like I'm back here, on the field of flowers where I had once defeated the Soul of Cinder. After shaking loose the cobwebs in my mind and muscles I found a new bonfire, one that leads me to the top of the Dreg Heap and offering one of the best views of the spiraling chaos anyone could ask for.

Something calls me forth, and I begin my descent through the familiar yet different, gravitationally warped locales and while the numerous undead here are quite manageable with funneling tactics I soon encounter a most curious and dangerous adversary - evil angels. These flying laser turrets are the bane of my exploration in this region, especially once I reach the mired swamp that everything seems to be pooling at.

Dodging that is pretty tough.

I meet the amnesiac knight Lapp, on this journey as well as Zoey the desert pyromancer who I best by kicking off a high ledge. Well technically, she actually dodged off and killed herself. It's the ever watchful eyes of the angels that pin me down here for a long time, until I finally find their weakness... hidden cocoon zombies who are individually quite helpless. Killing one insta kills the angel they control so I make it a point to find them and slay them all out of spite.