Elden Ring: Praise the holy!

[Part of my Elden Ring journal]

With that handy side quest done I'm back to Shadow Keep to exit via the West gate, when I finally figure out that its the little side door to use instead of the usual giant one. This path leads through a Bloodfiend tribe to a powerful hammer knight who I can only defeat using holy club magic missile spam, followed by a bridge that needs crossing in time with the giant fire effigy's flame vortex cool down and into some massive ruins that are home to both giant spider scorpions up stairs, fly men down stairs, more bird assassins and freaking insect people in plagued scarlet rot caves that really suck (I dash past these mounted).

Good thing I had left over Scarlet Rot cures and remembered to use them!

Annoyingly Hornsent invades at the exit of that plague section and I have to put down my ex-ally, right before facing the area boss who is a half lady, half winged centipede creature that also spreads scarlet rot. Luckily I down her on my first attempt with the help of Dryleaf Dane. Setting a tree behind her on fire removes the shadow seal from that tower near the start, and I find myself teleported to it to slay cultists and fly folk within while trying to dodge the stronger ogre mages. That first one blocking the stairs is a doozy and again needs holy club magic missile spam!

The fight up continues past another lion dancer to a chamber where Needle Knight Leda blocks the path with her allies Moore and Dryleaf Dane, but they are no match for me and my allies - Thollier and Sir Ansbach! With Miqella's last line of defense gone all that's left is for the three of us to get up to the highest boss door and... find Miqella has one more guardian on his side: Radahn!?

Elden Ring: Time for snake

[Part of my Elden Ring journal]

Leaving Thollier in the garden, the time has come to take on the Shadow Keep which includes dodging another giant fire effigy and slaying numerous black knights. Hornsent and Freyja aid against the courtyard guardian, a golden hippopotamus that eats the hapless Freyja before Hornsent finishes it off allowing me to enter the really tall tower that serves as a research station full of inscribed stone tablets and hanging giant corpses. Among the many enemies and flame knights (not so scary since they have little poise/are easy to stagger) I assist Sir Ansbach in doing some research on Miqella and assist Hornsent in fighting off Leda who is coming to kill him!

She escapes the battle but Hornsent is grateful enough to assist in fighting Messmer, the snake and spear wielding boss of this keep. It takes me three tries to get him down then I back track to the Keep's flooded church district (jumping puzzle time) and unflood it via a handy lever? Why would that not just be open all the time? Big monsters wait in the muddy bottom there whom I skip for now, and instead find the back door where the boar riding Commander Gaius awaits! He's another tough fight until I realize all I have to do is roll INTO his attacks.

Yes, roll into the giant armored boar.

While its a dead end beyond, there are a whole bunch of Scadutree fragments to collect which are a new thing that provide bonuses to people in the shadow realm. A separate path leads to a pair of mounted Tree Sentinels who I now classify as weak, followed by some worthless snake aliens and another falling star beast which poses no threat what so ever. Beyond the next camp is true horror though... as there flocks of giant hands crawling around! YUCK!!!

AC Odyssey: Boar Trap

[Part of the AC Odyssey journal]

"You sure bout this boss?" asked Dimitrios with more than a hint of terror in his voice as he and his companion continued to ride towards the swamp. "Don't worry Dimitrios, we'll get him this time!" proclaimed Niarchos loudly. Even his pet lion, following behind, knew this was false enthusiasm.

They all saw what happened to the rest of the hunt group at the Phokis docks, they were lucky to escape. "He won't have buildings to jump around and hide in out here!" Niarchos continued as the pair finally entered the marshland the Eagle Bearer was supposedly hiding in.

Niarchos scanned the field carefully when suddenly out of a distant bush emerged the largest boar he had ever seen. The Kalydonian Boar immediately charged, closing the distance in seconds and knocking Niarchos off his horse, trampling the steed to death and goring the lion in one fluid motion.

That's one big pig!

"Dimitrios!" Niarchos called but it was too late, his henchman had panicked and was already fleeing the scene. As the boar turned around for another charge, Niarchos drew his bow to face death head on.

Dimitrios looked back to see his boss obliterated by the massive boar, and was caught off guard when the Eagle Bearer suddenly appeared before him and threw a spear right into his face.

Insight: NPCs fight and kill each other. With careful planning you can get someone/something else to do the dirty work for you.

Country Walkabout

My journal through Stalker Online! You can follow the rest of the story here!

It was pretty easy going, traveling the country. The thing I saw earlier was a fortress controlled by the SILENCE faction. Seems they controlled a large portion of the midlands here as my journey North-East led me to two more of their strongholds (the one on top of a mountain was really nice)! The guards seemed friendly enough too. Killed more boars and spiders as I trekked through forest and field to another fort, this one held by the GROM_INT group. Less friendly here as they didn't even let me trade with them but at least I could spend the night in safety. At the break of dawn I continued East into the tall grass and I must have stepped on a spider nest or something because before I knew it, dozens of the arachnids were on my case.

If these are "small" I'd hate to see what "big" ones are!

Managed to kill all the leggy insects and make it back to a road where I fought and killed a mountain brutor. I wonder if this muscular dwarf is related to the burers? I tried to continue down the road through the valley but there was some large-scale anomaly here causing me to stagger. Kinda missed my psy-helmet now too. Pulled back and opted to follow the road West instead. Made for easy travelling again and though I thought I heard distant gunshots at one point, I didn't run into a single soul on this journey. Took a small dirt path North to some old farms but found them quite empty. After spending the night by a campfire I pushed on across the fields to another small deserted village. Looked like everything here was looted.

With no more map to the West I followed the road South, finding some larger boars now. Another fort, this one held by the GROM faction, was coming up but I didn't make it there as their sentries opened fire on me! Had to backtrack to the empty village to lick my wounds and rest up for the night. I had less than half the ammo I started with now, and my guns were slowly deteriorating. As nice as it was out here I had no choice but to try make my way back to the city eventually.

Which is a pity because it can be really nice out here.