Pillars of Eternity 2: Aloth Abandoned

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Having suffered many losses the team joins the galleon of their old frenemy Aloth (now a leaden key leader), and his team Barik, Esme, Dijaam and Pahtira who are also in need reinforcements and also out to fight against a god, just a different one. With an uneasy truce, they head out and on the very first stop over Maneha pushes Aloth into an undead filled bog and leaves him to die like the worthless traitor he is.

When you let players name islands...

They arrive at their destination, an iceberg than inexplicably keeps growing. It is also inhabited by a friendly doom cult, waiting die at the hands of a black dragon which the team slay, but somehow it just gets up again!? Vatnir, the leader of the cult, explains it might have something to do with their lord's temple deeper in the iceberg and follow him to investigate. Also joining the team are a few adventurers who just got stuck there: Sofie, Iholikan Quinval, and Farcol - long lost friend of Arzang and Gerrod.

Ferocious bears within manage to slay Barik and Konstanten while Pahtira's excellent trap disarming skills fail her in the end, leaving her impaled in midair on a spear trap. Beyond is a magic portal to an afterlife the dragon is somehow cheating by having its phylactery hidden within. What is dead may never die sory of thing. The god of this realm, Rymrgand, allows passage through the portal but only for the team to hunt down and destroy the phylactery, because every time the dragon returns - the iceberg grows a bit more. They agree.

Enderal: Explosive Finale

[Part of the Cursed story line]

After explaining the situation to Calia we decide to hedge our bets on the best way to save the world. Two of the less damaged Arps, who aren't goblins at all but puppets, are re-awoken using the soul gems of Pahtira (who has been listening to everything from my pack the whole time) and Goliath, both happy to be mobile again.

I tell them that they will be the ones using the escape pods to fly up to Starcity as that is where their knowledge of machines will be best served. Meanwhile Calia will take a shortcut to the Myrad towers to fly across the sea to warn the other countries and give them all the knowledge we gained.

As for me, I would need to destroy the Beacon. After a tearful farewell with Calia, I returned to the Sun Temple with the two Arps following behind. Taranor's forces had broken in, but he along with everyone else who wasn't already dead lay twitching and burning from inside. The Arps get to the escape pods and fly off while I walk up to the Beacon, finding Tealor lying on top of it, still believing he did something good.

There is only one thing to do now...

I wait as long as I can to give Calia time to flee before using the Blind Miner's axe to destroy the Beacon's power source and causing a continent sized explosion. Hah. Dying to save the entire world. If only the matron mother at Ust Natha could see me n... *KABOOM!*

Insight: What a cool game! I've obviously skipped a bunch of stuff and changed a few things to condense the story so I highly recommend experiencing Enderal for yourself! Maybe you'll make different choices than I did? I also didn't even touch a number of their custom skill trees nor did I visit every location on the map.

Enderal: History Repeating

[Part of the Cursed story line]

I don't know how far I've fallen when I come to, but it's nothing a healing potion or two can't fix. Following a single tunnel I come across a massive chamber housing a huge, unfinished and immobile "Goliath" robot. Like that incident with Pahtira, This one is also inhabited by a person - one who has survived countless Cycles in the machine body as the Cleansing (last part) skips non-flesh organisms.

This thing is massive.

It also reveals that what starts the Cleansing is always the same: activating the Beacon without the Numinos! Just as it has happened many times before - it was happening right now. The robot says there are only two choices left for me: to flee back to the Starcity via the escape pods we used prior, or to destroy the Beacon which would limit the destruction from being world wide to just being the continent of Enderal.

As a final request, it asks that I shut him down so that he finally "dies" but too late do I realize this is a trick, as his consciousness begins to swap bodies with my own! Luckily Calia arrives to save me just in time. This angers the Goliath who then uses his own creations: Arps, to try kill us. This does not go well for them or for him, as by the end - he is the one lying broken from an explosion.

Insight: The glowy suicide bomb Arps were killing me instantly if they got into melee, make sure you kill them at range!

Enderal: Starship Trooper

[Part of the Cursed story line]

From the shipwreck I then head East into a massive ice valley guarded by powerful Lost Ones and Starling machines!? Luckily I can just sneak past the lot of them and into the ancient Starling Starship entombed in the glacier.

Would have been nice to see this vessel in its entirety.

Inside I meet Pahtira again (guess she is sneaky too), and help her collect a power source from the vessel while fighting off Starling machine spiders, Starling centurions, and a handful of frost spiders that had nested in the vessel.

All goes well, until Pahtira enacts her "surprise" plan to transfer her consciousness into one of the Starling centurions with the belief that a robotic body is superior to her flesh one. She decides to see just how powerful she has become by fighting me!

The answer is pretty powerful, but also very slow. As an archer she has no chance to catch me while I dart around the room and disable her mechanized form. It's pathetic to see a big robot beg for mercy so I unplug her (she's now in soul gem form) and keep her in my pack - which is an odd place to put a prisoner.

Insight: The game rewards exploration! Collecting magic sigils gives XP while Ice Claw mushrooms permanently increase your carry weight by one.

Enderal: Treomar

[Part of the Cursed story line]

While Pahtira secures the relic, I myrad on near the next quest spot of Fogville - fighting both Lost Ones and Arps (goblinoids) to retrieve more research and mushroom samples that could be used to heal a section of cursed wood, or as a bioweapon.

I opt to think on what to do with it at the Frostcliff tavern where a traveling gypsy named Esme challenges me to a game of Gwent "Battle for Treomar" - a card game involving armies. It goes without saying that I lose spectacularly. Esme eventually asks for my help in searching for her girlfriend who was a passenger on the Morning Dew (what are the odds).

It's like Gwent basic.

She's heard rumor that the ship ran aground near the frozen north of the island and I promise to look into it if I ever head that way. Not right now though, as I want to get back to Ark and hand those shrooms in for destruction. I don't think Enderal can handle any more plagues at this point!

Insight: Meshing works properly in this game and by that I mean you can shoot through a cracks in a wall or through a jail cells if you aim well enough. It also means head shots count - usually scoring as critical hits.

Enderal: Lawbreaker of Justice

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Now cured by Lishari, I take my time heading back to Ark - doing some bounty hunting as well as killing a troublesome troll which earns me an "amazing" steed: Whirlwind... the Donkey. Such an insult! I then investigate a farmer for the Golden Sickle merchant's guild to find why he hasn't been delivering crop on time.

It serves its purpose.

Turns out his neighbor had been poisoning the soil below with giant spore shrooms as revenge for the farmer getting the contract with the Golden Sickle through underhanded means. As justice is balance, I get the farmer arrested and the neighbor a loan and a contract from the Golden Sickle in his stead. The Sickle Quartermaster, a bald man named Pennypouches, is unhappy with this result as it is a nett loss money wise.

I then Myrad off to another excavator camp also suffering from the local bandits. These ones are extremely tough for some reason, especially the wild mages who use frost spells to slow you down and fire spells to kill you simultaneously. Anyway, I manage to rescue one excavator, Pahtira, and manage to swipe the ancient device she was looking for from the bandit boss who is far too strong to defeat in combat. Luckily I had a few invisibility potions to get past him.

Insight: Myrad towers usually have secure chests. Also, myrads are super cute! :D