Dragon's Dogma: The Everfall

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

After dealing with the hydra, we finish off the cockatrice that had fled to Soulflayer Canyon. Its petrifying breath is inconsequential as we have a lot of curatives at this point. We also swing by the home of the Dragonforged but find he is gone. I suppose he died with the dragon. Eventually we return to Gran Soren to actually investigate that huge hole properly - it turns out it is the Everfall which has grown into a cascading hole filled with mini dungeons.

I join other adventurers in exploring the place, defeating a beholder (more magic based than the one on Bitterblack Isle), a magic ice drake as well as another with a heart on it's back and groups of ogres and cyclops. What catches us off guard is a lich and metal golem team though. The metal golem's medal weakspots aren't on its body, and instead are scattered around the chamber - its easy enough to destroy them except for the one floating high in the sky because said medals are immune to magic, so my magic arrows did nothing to it.

I'm just... catching my breath...

In the meantime the lich was busy not just summoning undead, but also casting petrification spells - and since we used up a large portion of the curatives against the cockatrice in the canyon both Cedric and Margel are soon turned to stone! The metal golem then uses its explosive laser beam eye to explode statue Margel into tiny bits and crush statue Cedric underfoot. While Rose and I manage to kill the floating lich afterwards the golem is too problematic and we are forced to withdraw - recalling back up to the city.

Dragon's Dogma: Just can't Win

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

Turns out the dragon's death isn't the end of the game, all it did was darken the sky and it is now raining ash continuously everywhere. Worse, some of the monsters in the country side have grown stronger too so we head back to Gran Soren to get some answers and instead find a massive, gaping hole that has consumed over half the city, including Fournival's cell and Jasper's home. Parkour kid Pip blames me for his parents death. Just can't win with some people.

I go visit the Duke who has now withered into an old man. He cannot believe that anyone could have slain the dragon, and in his madness attacks me feebly with a sword as he believes I took the same deal he did. I easily kick him down, but his guardsmen led by Ser Maximillian come to his aid in an unending swarm - believing his lies that I placed a curse on him. I lost count of how many I kill during the escape/slaughter. Ser Maximillian is among them.

To be fair, spin kicking a duke is probably against the law.

Fortunately enough guards died that they are only congregating now at the Duke's castle, letting us freely roam what's left of the city. Despite that, we leave anyway to do some of the new hunting quests, including putting an end to the poison spitting hydra who has resurfaced at the Shadow Fort. Margel's shield boost is handy which makes it easier to hop up there and chop off its heads, as is Cedric's fire magic which slows them from growing back. It takes a bit of time, but we are victorious!

Dragon's Dogma: Rescuing the Girl

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

With the rebellion ended the team makes a stop at the catacombs where we attempt to slay two living armours. The problem with these things is that apart from the wide arcs of their seriously damaging sword swings, they are also immune to magic for the first stage and immune to physical damage in the second. Also, unlike the one we fought on Bitterblack Isle which was in a large arena - these two were in a more claustrophobic room. We (and I mean Margel and Fedel) simply couldn't get them to the second phase, and when they killed Fedel I knew we just had to cut our losses and retreat.

My first guess was the dragon.

Just as well too since Gran Soren was under attack - some Salvation infiltrators had resurrected the dead cockatrice Mercedes' troops brought back as tribute to the Duke. We killed the cultists and hurt the beast enough that it flew away, but it did manage to petrify some of the locals. We didn't stay long though as we learned that the Duchess Aelinore had been exiled to another of the Duke's estates where she now awaited execution for her unfaithfulness.

Jasper, the peasant whose home loan I paid off earlier, comes along to help out - carrying a nice disguise for me which makes infiltrating really easy and I reach Aelinore in no time. After a (not so) short interlude to test the bed, I then have to fight out against all the guards I snuck past, as well as more in the tunnels beneath. Fortunately Rose, Cedric, Margel and Jasper meet me half way and the Duchess is whisked off to safety. I'm noticing a theme of vanishing NPCs in this game...

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.