Risk: Elder Scrolls V - Skyrim

Here's a cut throat competitive game for 2-5 players that I originally just got awhile ago because I like all things "Skyrim" but haven't had a group to play it with until now. So, first of all it is RISK. A game of putting little figures on a map and then moving said little figures into territories of your frenemies to do some dice battle in a bid for map-wide domination.

Dice determines a lot of things here like who goes first and who survives combat. After "spawning" the map with your little dudes each player can then invade sending up to three of them into neighboring hostile territory (and some neighbors are connected by daedric portals). Attackers roll a dice per dude they sent while the defenders can defend with up to two. Compare the highest die pairs with defenders winning ties and remove the losing pieces. Then if there are still defenders, continue the dice rolling fest!

So far that's just regular Risk on a Skyrim map. What makes it more Skyrim though is that each faction has a hero and each turn other than gaining reinforcements you gain magicka which lets you buy and cast spells (all one shot) or buy important objective cards. You start with two of these and at the end of your turn if you've completed one you announce it and gain the indicated victory points. First to 10 wins, which is a lot faster than map-wide domination. For ridiculous hi jinks you can also shuffle in the "End of Game" card in the reward pile that people draw from if they won any territory on their turn.

Heroes are pretty tough with 10 HP each but they can only move where you have a little dude, and while enemy little dudes can attack them they can only defend against the little dudes (even if they were invading). Attack or defend, heroes always use max dice. Wait, if heroes can only defend against little dudes what do they attack? Other heroes (and heroes slain by other heroes get all their gear [you can buy armor and weapons too] taken by the victor).

Heroes can also fight dragons. There are four that randomly spawn at the start of the game and no little dudes can enter their territory without a hero to try slay the dragon. Dragons also have 10 HP and will only ever defend. Killing one grants the victorious hero a powerful dragon shout that they can use once per turn like, convince enemy little guy to become your little guy or Fus Ro Dah all enemy little guys out of a territory! 

Alas the rules need some interpretation and I house ruled only three invasions per turn to keep turns shorter and have each player engaged (which also invalidated at least two objective cards as they needed 4 and 6 successful invasions respectively). The VP win condition thankfully makes the game more manageable but it still took 4 of us maybe three and a half hours to finish. 

Better than I thought it would be, but it still doesn't beat El Grande or the always excellent and fast paced Lords of Waterdeep. 

Skyrim: Adventure Game (Board Game) - The Cult

[Part of the Party Time journal]

Twenty five years have passed with DL becoming a blacksmith in Markarth, Sky becoming a fixer in Rifter, Rose becoming an apothecary in Falkreath and mom taking up a courier job in Hjaalmarch. Now weaker than ever (pretty cool mechanic), they must be extra cautious to avoid the Thalmor patrols on the roads (lousy mechanic) as once again their cover lives are examined by the authorities. Sky gets info from the thieves guild that this round of inquisition is stemming from the unhappy Dunmer refugees from Morrowind who have even concocted a plot to assassinate High King Torygg! Alas, they are too late to warn the king who is slain by Ulfric Stormcloak at Solitude's Blue Palace and instead are drafted into opposing sides of the quickly brewing civil war: DL and Sky for the Stormcloaks, mom and Rose for the Imperials.

When Ulfric's execution is prevented by the arrival of a dragon, each side is tasked with trying to slay the great wyrms but while DL and Sky do that to collect lots of powerful dragon bone artifacts, Rose and mom assist the Imperials in gaining dominance over the province and gaining a windfall in wealth. Despite the head to head, they collectively discover it is actually a cult to Boethiah that is behind the latest events and access their hidden temple through a series of skill checks (super cool) and learn of the cults Dunmer master, Oviron.

While mom is tricked by the daedric prince Sanguine to ransack Windhelm, DL recruits deranged crusader Giara to the cause while Rose and Sky battle the entire graveyard of Morthal where Rose becomes a Thane and makes friends with "Edward" the vampire (we just call him that, but he makes an amazing summon in battle). Their new allies tell them of Oviron's location at Hrothgar, and so the entire team heads there beating down cultists on the way (need to keep their numbers down) and face Oviron and his cronies. Giara dies in battle but Oviron escapes through an oblivion gate. Not willing to let their prey escape, the team jump in to pursue him just as the gate closes in on itself... which is the end of the campaign.

An excellent finale with some great fights. I'm not convinced by the cultists you have to kill / Thalmor you have to evade mechanic though because they always move towards the active player, which means most of the time they're just walking in circles. The random monsters that just show up and go for cities are more fun, and don't hang around like a bad smell like those guys do.

Skyrim: Adventure Game (Board Game) - The Traitor

[Part of the Party Time journal]

Now officially on the run, the team decide to split up and go to their various contacts for assistance: DL helps a suicidal bard get through some Hagravens, mom helps the Black Briars torch their opposition in Riften, Rose helps some cannibals defeat some vampires (huh?) and Sky helps some Talos worshippers, now illegal due to the White-Gold Concordat, obtain his helm from a crypt. Each of them indicate that there's a traitor in the Blades, but before they can work out who it is they are invited to a meeting by the local Blade grandmaster. Luckily they arrive late, as they find everyone else dead. By process of elimination, the only one whose body they don't find among the dead is the traitor.

As Thalmor agents begin becoming more and more prevalent, the team split up to go undercover again while still trying to glean information about Moivva's whereabouts. Rose does this by peacefully rebuilding Rorikstead and acting as a healer, mom becomes a performing artist (and pickpocket) in Solitude, and Sky listens to the daedric prince Mephala in trying to assassinate a local Jarl in exchange for information - but he fails in this task. DL goes the completely opposite way and tries to face Mephala on her own plane of Oblivion where she takes his likeness. That does not go well at all and DL ends up trapped in Oblivion for a long, long time (which is a seriously terrible design decision because its basically, on your turn roll 3 "6"s on a 3D6 to continue playing, and that's not fun at all).

Somehow, he manages it eventually while the other three simply keep the random events at bay (its a long session) but at least by that time they have the location of Moivva. The trio fight her, her goons and the traitorous Blade in a pretty easy battle and end up executing her. With sweet vengeance dished out, the four decide to split up again to continue hiding from the Thalmor in semi-retirement.

For some reason all the combats in these particular chapters was really boring / easy. Possibly because we leveled up so much while DL was stuck in Oblivion (can't complete mission without all players being at X location).

Skyrim: Adventure Game (Board Game) - The Blades

[Part of the Party Time journal]

The "Blades", undercover special forces of the Emperor are present everywhere - even during the great war. In the Northern lands of Skyrim, mom (a sneaky Khajiit) eludes a mercenary squad sent after her while Rose (a magus Altmer) barely escapes arrest as DL (sword wielding Imperial) defeats the guardsmen that held her custody (in a really tough fight to solo). Yazish the orc helps them escape to Whiterun where Sky (Me, a sneaky Nord: because I play how I played in the PC game) is helping to defend against some wandering Dremora.  

While Yazish is slain in this battle, he asks Rose to help his clan mates near Riften so she and DL go there and free their camp form a Nordic siege but when they decline to assist in helping the Orsimer to attack Riften the pair are thrown into a pit leading to an underground Dwemer City! At the same time Mom and Sky are in a different Dwemer city, laying a trap for those mercenaries still on her tail. Using an unstable dwemer device, Sky explodes them all and they find clues on who is hunting them: a khajiit named Moivva Karnai.

M'aiq thinks you need some skooma.

When all four return top side they meet at their rally point and using the information gained raid Moivva's hideout at Dawnstar for hard evidence of a massive conspiracy which they take to Solitude to present to the High King. Alas, instead of listening to their case he instead delivers the bad news: the war is over. The White-Gold concordat is signed. He tosses them each a bag of gold and tells them to go into hiding.

Pretty cool start with varying degrees of difficulty, though it did take people awhile to get that magic armor only protects against magic, heavy armor only protects against heavy attacks, and light armor only protects against light attacks. Yes, so the little dagger that only does light attacks will cut right through your +5 magical heavy plate of bullshitery. While the higher level enemies stack armor of each type to make them "tough", the players will almost always have at least one weakness.

What's in your Favorites?

Or what would you put there?

This question stems from my last free Steam games post, where I made a passing mention of my favorites which is actually a sub section available to all Steam users that I've only started using recently. I thought I'd share the 15 games that made it in there, my main criteria being "games I would play again". Obviously this doesn't cover any games outside of my steam library so maybe I'll do a bigger list later down the track.

It's currently a pretty short list.

Going over them really quickly in no particular order: Black Desert is a beautiful and interesting MMORPG, but it stopped letting me play (startup error) so I'm not sure if that's staying in here for much longer. I love the stealth mechanics in Thief, both Dishonored games which also have multiple ways to play, Skyrim which has tons of mods to enjoy (it also stole my name, arrrrgh *shakes fist*), and GTFO - my current regular multiplayer stealth horror.

Sleeping Dogs is just fun in a chaotic way while To the Moon and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice are both excellent game wise and in hitting me in the feels. The remaining six are all free games: A Raven Monologue and When the Past was Around: Prologue are more feels hitters, Dead Horizon is an excellent lesson in short story telling, and High Entropy Challenges, Gravitas and Liquidators are all good first person puzzlers featuring in the same order: stealth, humor, and Chernobyl. :P

But what of these do I consider the best you ask? That's not so hard to answer. Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice wins easily.

What games do you have flagged as your favorites?

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: Numinos

[Part of the Cursed story line]

The wisps and specters in the vault tunnels are easily navigated to reach the Undercity which is in chaos. People infected by red madness, looters and a contingent of tough Nehrimise all have to be dealt with before we reach a collapsed tunnel that Yuslan reopens.

This leads deep down into the lost city we are looking for and it is full of stairs, corpses burned from within and lost ones, including a ghost dragon who collapses the ceiling and separating Calia from the group. Tealor, Yuslan and I push on and at an ancient Beacon, find the Numinos. Doesn't the fact that we found it here means it didn't work?

It's the perfect place for a knife in the back.

It doesn't matter because Yuslan gets to it first and reveals that he too is a traitor, and is the one that let the Nehrimise into the city the first time - all because Tealor killed his family long ago. He also admits to killing Lishari as she was too close to the truth before using himself as a human bomb to destroy the Numinos, a final act of revenge.

I take the brunt of the blaze as Tealor uses me as a human shield. With no way to stop the cycle now, the grand master is resolute in activating the Beacon as is - which is just going to be one huge explosion to take down the Nehrimise with everyone else. I try to grab his leg to stop him but he just stomps me down through the wooden floor.

Insight: The Nehrimise and the Lost Ones at the temple stairs are strong and in big numbers. Hanging back and sniping from the shadows works well provided you brought enough ammo with you.

Enderal: Loyalties

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Warping back to Ark, Calia and I report to Tealor and then share an enjoyable evening while we still can. The following day I am tasked with helping Yuslan to decode the map and finds that it points to the last place a Beacon was used, centuries ago. In the city deep beneath Ark itself!

This revelation is interrupted when a bunch of Keepers attempt to sabotage the current Beacon and while they are stopped, their other traitorous compatriots have let the Nehrimise army into Ark in exchange for a truce, one Taranor is unlikely to keep for long.

The end times are a bloody business.

With the temple being the final stronghold, Tealor assembles a squad composed of Calia, Yuslan and myself to use the tunnels of the old vault to descend into the Undercity and beyond to find the Numinos. Everyone else just has to hold position. As there is no beating the Nehrimise now, it is his hope we can still use the Beacon to end the Cycle before they can get through. All Calia and I can think of is finding a way to escape the madness while we are down there.

Insight: There's a handy "point of no return" message, so get everything you need done before accepting.

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: What they do in the Shadows

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Calia has a lead on the final stone so I journey with her up to a well fortified castle in the mountains that was once the home of a renowned healer. It's obvious from the scattered research notes and the amount of lost ones that at some point he stopped being a healer and became more of a mad scientist though, apparently using the black stone on his dead child to revive her.

While exploring the castle we get separated by a portcullis shut by some crafty mercenaries that were shadowing us to take the artifact for themselves. Calia is captured easily, and she becomes their plaything for a time while I continue the mission and collect the stone. Turns out resurrection by black stone has a side effect - it gives the person a "shadow form monster". It's pretty clear that this child was Calia herself.

She did not have a good time.

Upon returning to her, I find the portcullis blasted open and Calia stripped naked and unconscious. Pieces of the merc crew lie scattered everywhere in pools of blood and things that shouldn't be on fire somehow are. Guess they didn't know who they were fucking with, literally. I wrap Calia up in a blanket and take both her and the stone back to the safety of Ark.

Insight: It just occurs to me this game is kinda dark. I'd better stop recommending it to younger people. :P

Enderal: Wishbreaker

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Jespar and I return to Ark to meet up with Grandmaster Tealor who is facing many critics upon the coming war, most vocally from Squad Leader Jorek, but Tealor refuses to surrender the Beacon. Instead he tasks us with finding three black stones to power it. To help in this endeavor, Tealor commands the guards to lift the kill on sight command previously on me and after paying an exorbitant fee I'm free of the law men again. It also helps that Mael, the instigator of that command, has left the city, presumably to pursue Dijaam across the sea.

The first of the black stones actually belongs to Jespar's family, most likely with his estranged sister since he doesn't have it. Our search for her reveals that she is also the vigilante known as the Bone Judge. When we finally catch up to her, we find the stone is what gives her her power and since Jespar can't talk her into surrendering I end up killing her. Jespar hates me for this, and spirals into a dark place full of powdered drugs, alcohol and whores. 

Sorry kid, the greater good is always better than a single person's happiness.

I track the next stone to a village near Duneville where everyone seems pretty happy. The owner of this artifact is a little boy whose only hope is to find someone to play with and using the power to create a "reality" where people like him and refuse to leave. I have no choice but to take the stone from him by force and kill the deformed child. As a result the people in the town die too, since they haven't eaten anything real for years and were just being sustained through the boy's wish.

Insight: Not sure why I couldn't pay my fine earlier, I guess I needed to wait long enough for the NPCs to respawn without aggro?

Enderal: The Cycle

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Getting caught turns out to be the fastest way to meet the Nehrimise commander, Taranor, who finds and uses the magic plate to contact Tealor. Apparently there's significant evidence about of a cycle here in Enderal, one nearing its end in which all life simply vanishes.

The Keepers have been trying hard to stop it but the atheistic Nehrimise don't want that. They believe the cycle ends with evolving into something else, something greater. Hence they have come to wage war to stop the Keepers plans, unless Tealor agrees to stop constructing the device Lishari's team recovered from the dig site which they call "the Beacon".

Tealor flatly refuses, so the war is on. Being a good sport, Taranor decides against simply executing Jespar and I there and then - instead putting us on a raft  to let chance decide our fate. Fortune favors us as a passing fishing vessel picks us up after a few hours and takes us to Duneville.

They also didn't take any of our gear, that's convenient!

Here I find Esme once again, who lets all her feelings off her chest. With nothing left for her here, I urge her to find passage elsewhere before she gets caught up in the coming war. Or the end of the cycle. Whatever comes first.

Insight: This is unrelated to the current post but don't try attack any of the Rhalata in their main base (or do it off a save). The result is clever, humorous and fatal.

Enderal: Undertrain

[Part of the Cursed story line]

After defeating some crystal elementals Jespar and I finally reach the temple and find Firespark waiting with the front door open. Not far in a trio of pressure plates that need to be stepped on simultaneously splits up the party in this trap filled temple which likes to play mind games.

Let's split up! What could possibly go wrong?

By the time I meet up with Jespar and Firespark, the old mage has already gone mad - another victim of "Red Madness". I shoot an arrow into his mouth, killing him before he can cast any spells. Not long after Jespar and I find a corpse that looks exactly like me!? No, this temple sure knows how to play with people's minds. I am the true Solaufein!

We push on to the lower levels, defeating numerous lost ones and find the Undertrain and get the ancient vehicle working. It takes a few hours to reach our destination which is another station filled with lost ones, but once those are clear it's just a short hike before we are within sight of the main Nehrimise fort.

It is then that both Jespar and I get knocked out and captured. In hindsight, the Undertrain is not the stealthiest of approaches.

Insight: Did I mention I hate railroading? Because I hate railroading. Anyway, have a melee weapon ready once you reach the arrival station. The lost ones are literally swarming the door as you step out.

Enderal: Meeting Sneaking

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Being wanted really makes it challenging to attend the next meeting in the Keeper's base. It takes a bit of the time stop perk and a number of invisibility potions to reach it without being massacred by all the guards and soldiers on the way in.

Grandmaster Tealor himself is not impressed by my tardiness or by my current status which he refuses to override. Instead he assigns me a task suitable for my skill set, and my being expendable. The Nehrimise army has sailed across the sea in what is the start of an invasion and I am to plant magical plates in their base to spy on them.

Since Jespar is just a greedy merc, he too is sent with me and our first task is to meet up with Firespark at an ancient temple which has the transportation means to reach the Nehrimise camp undetected. To avoid the local guards we teleport out of there to the Frostcliff Tavern, but the patrons there are also on the look out for me just proving the reach of Mael's pockets!

Sort of like this, but with everyone after Jespar and I.

A mass brawl erupts in which we kill a few people before managing to break free and flee towards the mission objective.

Insight: There are a surprising number of NPCs that can't be killed in safe zones, so don't expect to win fights by being the last one standing there. You won't be.

Enderal: Top of the List

[Part of the Cursed story line]

The search for Tara leads past a pus beetle hive to an Arp filled ruin where it becomes evident that Tara and her cultist buddies all killed themselves - probably part of the same group that I previously found at their island resort. Esme is obviously unhappy with the find.

The desert knights don't like being disturbed.

As she wants to be left alone I warp back to Ark and find every single guard hostile to me as I am now Ark's most wanted! Fortunately they don't give chase into the Undercity where the few remaining Rhalata, now led by the First Seer, grant me protection for my previous service - even from "Crocco" the previous most wanted man in Ark who had come to take back his "crown". A single Rhalata literally obliterates him and his crew.

For this I decide to help them out by killing the Blind Miner. It turns out he is one of a handful of legendary creatures that have books written about them. The lore for him indicates that a particular totem weakens him so I craft one and find it is super effective. Without his invincibility, he's just another lost one. His one handed axe is a magnificent bonus as it is one of the best weapons I've seen.

Insight: As I found out in this session - it pays to read books!

Enderal: The Petrified

[Part of the Cursed story line]

We find Mael strung up on the theater stage but alive, and in front of him a priceless gem stolen from the Golden Sickle caravan long ago. Dijaam tries to grab it but is immobilized by a dart trap, leaving myself to deal with the puppet master - Pennypouches who is suffering from Red Madness!

One of the hardest fights in Enderal.

He sends his two hired Petrified goons (they really work for anyone) to deal with me in what becomes a really long battle! I end up using a lot of my potions and ammo to defeat the two fools before finally killing Pennypouches and administering the cure to Dijaam. Despite Mael's very vocal protests and threats, we promptly abscond with the gem to a secluded beach where Dijaam can properly reward me.

In the morning, she and the gem are gone having left a note that reads "I'm sorry". Knowing Mael is not one for empty threats I decide hideout in Duneville for awhile, and run into Esme en route - just in time to save her from some bandits, and to rejoin her search for Tara.

Insight: The battle against the two petrified is one of the toughest ones I've come across due to the mechanic. You need to knock both down at the same time and keep attacking while they are down to deplete their psychic shields / do any damage. Easier said than done for an archer.

Enderal: Pulling Our Strings

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Stealing the info from the the spooky manor is pretty straight forward, so Jespar and I return to Ark where a courier kid gives me a letter from Dijaam. Jespar goes ahead to report in while I visit the merchantess at an Undercity tavern and accept her request to assist in finding out who set her up to take the blame for the Golden Sickle ambush.

A speedy investigation has clues that quickly point to Mael, the Golden Sickle grandmaster, so Dijaam heads to the Sickle base in town to confront him but only find a shop full of workers. Things escalate quickly which results in their massacre! For this, Dijaam is quickly apprehended by the city guard and taken to prison.

Hang in there, pussy cat.

Fortunately I am a lot stealthier, and with no witnesses putting me at the scene of the crime I am free to head to the prison and break her out. Unfortunately the guards have had their way with her by then and I find her battered, beaten, and "thoroughly" searched, but she did learn from them that Mael is actually missing too. We conclude that whoever is pulling our strings is trying to put on a show and head to the old theater on a hunch.

Insight: Generic enemies respawn after a few days have passed, so don't assume things are clear if you haven't been there recently.