Sacred: Anducar

[Part of the Sacred Journey.]

Turns out I had to first kill the Elite Guard who tried (and failed) to ambush me before Anducar himself would show up, so after using the lure and kill method the robed wizard himself popped out and explained that Vilya was actually working for him in exchange for him to resurrect Prince Valor (she's dumb), and that everything was now in place as he planned - including me being there. Why were your guards so frigging annoying then?

Anyway, so begins the epic combat where the old man runs slowly around the room, and throwing very slow moving spells. Erm... Looks like the few potions I have left will suffice in this combat. Unlike Shaddar he is even susceptible to BFGs so it is with ease that he is defeated... and then he transforms into a demon which I think gives Vilya a heart attack because she just dies outright at that point too.

The fight now is a bit harder with a lot more fast potion usage to survive his attacks. Well, his one unfair attack that you cannot evade anyway. All the rest are easy to side step or soft enough to eat. Eventually he dies and in a cutscene Valor's ghost takes Vilya's ghost away from the collapsing temple, leaving me stranded there in the deepest heart of a demon army that just lost the one guy that was keeping everything together. Awesome. >_<

I suppose something like this happens next.

And that is how Sacred ends! There are more games in the series which might see a continuation of this story but for now its au revoir and thanks for reading. :)

Sacred: Temple of Hell

[Part of the Sacred Journey.]

Past those gates were even more powerful green demon brutes along with everyone's favourite shadow demon paralyzers. There were still actually side quests in this region but I opted to neglect them this time around as there were no resupply vendors anywhere close by. Pushing through the demon army was slow going but eventually I found the blacksmith of hell with his mighty big hammer who would have given me the Gem of Light for the Eternal Flame. Too bad for him I don't bargain with demons.

He was pretty tough and proficient with that hammer though, and cost me at least half my stock of potions before he died. To gain the item needed to beat his boss seemed worth it though, so with the gem of light in my possession I began the final run to Anducar's temple where pretty much every sort of demon was waiting for me, including many pairs of Sakkara / Balor types.

Thankfully they weren't paired with the shadow demons so I could just elude them using combat jumps, including one that served as a shortcut to the floating temple itself. Those grounds were still patrolled by Mohkva and shadow demon scum again though but with perseverance I managed to reach the "throne" room of the temple (temples have throne rooms) where lady Vilya stood mute and unmoving. No sign of Anducar though.

Sacred: Descent

[Part of the Sacred Journey.]

Apparently killing a man makes him friendlier in this game, as Shaddar went on to explain what exactly was going on. Apparently some powerful wizard demon lord guy named Anducar was opening up these portals to begin his invasion of the realm, and for some reason Anducar also had Vilya hostage (as opposed to her being killed earlier). I don't think to question how Shaddar knows this, but he does ask that I clear the demon scum from his tower as that is the site of another gate.

How I'm feeling at this point.

One quick Subkari and Sakkara demon fight later (with the Sakkara fought in the same room I defeated Shaddar), Shaddar says that I will need the "Gem of Light" to defeat Anducar, and that item is with Hell's Blacksmith Neophystis just as the ghost of Prince Valor shows up again just to urge me to save Vilya once more. Really tempted to use an "undeath death" potion on that fool.

Anyway, after fully loading up on potions again I begin my descent from the mountain. My fricking LONG descent from the mountain, fighting through more shadow demons and the fast little ones and past cerebopod land into a dark cave which only has more of the same waiting for me. I can't really blitz through it so it is slow and methodical at this point, unlocking the four locks scattered around the place while trying to conserve as many potions as I can. Once that is done I descend even further and find what I suppose are the gates of hell, open and waiting for me to enter.

Sacred: Paradise, Comparatively

[Part of the Sacred Journey.]

The only way to shut down the second gate was to step through it, and yet another Sakkara demon lay waiting on the sands of the other side. It seriously starts right beside you. Now this was one of the most intense fights I've had so far, not because the demon was overly powerful - but because I had to fight without potions! Sure Vilya helped out a bit but in the end I still felt very proud upon defeating the bastard after a long fight.

Unfortunately Vilya was disintegrated with a loud scream right after our victory by unseen forces. Prince Valor's ghost showed up to grieve a bit (it was your fault moron), but then told me there were more portals needing to be shut and that I should ask the pirates to the South for the location of the next one before vanishing off again and leaving me alone in the desert.

Fortunately there was a small oasis town nearby where I could restock and really relax since this environment was the most pleasing one I've been to for awhile. While there I also helped put down a troublesome undead mage, rescue a lost kid and concoct an antidote for her scorpion sting, all of which were very easy tasks comparatively. Eventually it was time to run the gauntlet of the desert valley down to the pirate docks, and the merchant who came along with me did not survive the snakes and wyverns of outrageous fortune. I'd hate to think how he would have fared against things with that paralysis skill then.

Sacred: Cursed Forest

[Part of the Sacred Journey.]

With Vilya freed the ghost of Prince Valor showed up again, saying there were more portals to be closed. He then asked if Vilya should accompany me or he should keep her safe. Wait... if you can do that you damn ghost then what the hell did you need me for!? I tell him to keep the girl safe out of spite so that he can make himself useful, then using a portal which takes me back to the mine entrance run back through all the bugs to get to Purgatori.

There I was told that one of their members had been taken captive, and that he might know where this next gate is. Sure enough he had been caught by the Mohkva in the nearby forest maze. I freed him just fine, but we found ourselves trapped in the forest by the magic of the evil Nuk-Nuk (goblin zombie guys). The only option was to kill the Nuk-Nuk leader which proved to be a most challenging task since his ranged attacks were almost one hit KO's. It required a bit of arcade skills and a fair number of potions to get the hang of it.

Speaking of spooky forests, I think Aokigahara classifies as one.

Unfortunately the captive guy didn't do so well, but with his dying breath told me the next portal was in the woods nearby. I decided to go for it immediately, rushing past the many snake men along the forest path when I suddenly came upon - Vilya? Damnit Valor, you are a complete failure - even in death! Anyway, the Baroness brought her bow to help out a little and I must admit it did prove useful to defeat the next Subkari demon we encountered. We needed to duck into the shanty huts while doing so to avoid its AOE attacks but eventually downed the bastard. At this point I was out of healing potions.

Sacred: Holy Hell

[Part of the Sacred Journey.]

Took a much needed detour to a massive walled city called Purgatori to take a breather from running from all the giant bugs. I also decided to help out the residents there with killing undead goblin creatures and ghouls, dealing with a demon who wasn't a demon, and baking cookies. Once that was done I set out again to find the mines, stopping only to aid a woman being chased by a swarm of giant wasps. Just to give you an idea of how tough the foes here were I really needed to use my BFG to stand a chance.

Finally I reached the mine and it was filled with shadow demons and demon worshipping Mohkva people. While the worshippers weren't much of an issue, those demons were crazy strong - came in groups of 6-8 and all of them could paralyze me which meant running past was not an option and fighting without the BFG was a risky gamble. This made traversing this place a frigging long nightmare.

At least the second floor was home exclusively to flaming spiders (how does that work?) which made it really quick, but the last floor again had the demons that needed to be slowly ground through. Eventually I came to the kidnapper demon, a strong Subkari type who didn't have the path finding issues of his predecessor. Still, it was a doable fight and eventually I was victorious. It seemed to be guarding a gate though which needed both ends shut so I stepped through and found another Sakkara demon!

Did you miss me?

Yup, another boss fight right away and this time with no geometry to hide behind. Fortunately it wasn't as strong as the last one and I still had enough healing potions to just power through it. Once it fell I returned to the underworld where the now freed Vilya was waiting. If only that was the end of it!

Sacred: Underworld

[Part of the Sacred Journey.]

Some days later, I was summoned back to the ancestral forge by lady Vilya who was having nightmares and in despair about her lost love Valor. The wise wizard was there too, and I think he was trying to resurrect the dead prince but all he managed to do was open a portal to the underworld which promptly made a big, spiny demon show up which automatically killed the wizard - grabbed Vilya and retreated back to its realm.

With no time to assemble my previous knight team (who I guess were training with the dragon in Drakenden anyway), I jumped into the portal in pursuit. Once there I found Prince Valor's ghost waiting for me, instructing me to save Vilya. Seriously!? He's still bossing me around after he's dead?

Where are these guys when I need them?

Anyway, if this is the underworld it looks a lot like the normal world. Just full of giant bugs and worms which are easily enough ran past. I also come across a mushroom village with odd looking commoners called Haduk who still trade in gold and have the normal problems to be solved as before. Asking about the kidnapper demon they direct me towards a mine to find it, and one even offers to guide me there though halfway decides he's had enough and leaves me anyway.

I don't know what happened at this point in game design terms. This was the start of huge areas to traverse with not really much content, just endless swarms of enemies, which for me was a severe drop in quality.

Sacred: Shaddar

[Part of the Sacred Journey.]

With the demon essence trapped in the gem, we returned to Braverock castle and handed it over to the sorceress Shareefa for disposal. Only instead of being a buxom tanned woman she transformed into a pale thin whiny male necromancer with greasy hair: Shaddar! After doing his bad guy spiel about using the gem to attain god hood / more power he snapped his fingers and Prince Valor along with his guardsmen died and turned into zombies who we needed to destroy.

Shaddar then teleported away with a captured Vilya just for good measure. Fortunately a wise wizard who showed up out of nowhere was there to tell us to go rescue the baroness and stop the crazy bastard, otherwise we wouldn't know what to do! :P Getting back to Shaddar's tower was easy since there was that handy way gate right beside it that he forgot to close. This time the basement was set up for a ritual and we had to deal with the handful of Sakkara cultists Shaddar still had with him before facing the man himself.

I made everyone look like a fool!

To his credit, he was completely immune to my BFG (and possibly to all magic) but since my character was mostly specced for physical attacks and still had four knights backing her up he was in all sorts of trouble regardless. Upon his defeat we tossed him down the giant hole nearby and returned to Braverock triumphant. As for the demon gem thingy? I assume I kept it since it is never mentioned again.

Sacred: Sakkara

[Part of the Sacred Journey.]

The streets of the city were filled with fighting so it was pretty easy to get up to main castle itself (especially with eight NPCs behind me). Once there we confronted DeMordrey himself and to his credit he was one tough cookie, surviving many rounds of BFG-ing. He kept getting distracted by my companions though, which proved to be his undoing. Once dead, Prine Valor took his place on the throne with Vilya at his side but our job wasn't finished.

We needed to take Shareefa down to the ancestral forge where she could put the elements together and summon the lose Sakkara Demon for one final fight. The damn thing was three levels down and had a metric ton of undead in the way and while we did reach there in the end it did cost one party member, Glubba the ogre, his life.

With the elements forged into the "Heart of Ancaria" gem, Shareefa told us how to summon the demon and wished us luck as she was teleporting out to seal us in - you know, in case we lost. I really dislike that woman. Anyway, with no other choice we summoned forth the Sakkara demon (who looks a lot like a D&D Balor or Tolkien Balrog) and began a most difficult and epic fight, that is until I found its one weakness: It didn't know how to walk around a particular object in the room. Exploiting that, the demon was soon defeated with none of the remaining party getting killed.

That mortal knew my one weakness... pillars!

Sacred: The Fifth Element

[Part of the Sacred Journey.]

We teleported to the distant desert and right into large numbers of Sakkara with undead fighting orcs. Judging from the map we were still a ways off from the tower we wanted to get to so I immediately went for the sprint route, using combat jump on the higher cliff tops to avoid a lot of the fighting and to break through the paralysis tendrils when I could. There were sections where that wasn't an option (either no where to jump or it was on cool down), meaning that we had to fight with some being pretty close affairs. Feeling pretty good that I brought those four knights as backup!

Upon finally reaching the tower we found the friendly ogre Glubba, a previous servant of the idiot Shaddar, who asked us to take him home to the place of his birth. Only I knew just from the description that it was that village where everyone turned into zombies, so I decided to keep him with us. In the basement below there were some demons waiting to be cleared out, and just beyond them we finally found... the fifth element!

It was nowhere near this pretty though.

Using the conveniently nearby way gate it was back to Braverock where I found Shareefa again with Prince Valor who was still camped out three levels down in his enemies excrement. What the HELL has this loser been doing while I've been out playing fetch? Anywho, apparently now that I'm back with four extra knights and an ogre he feels confident in taking down DeMordrey at last, so he, Baroness Vilya and Shareefa join the party for an assault on the main castle itself.

Sacred: A Speedy Reunion

[Part of the Sacred Journey.]

In under five minutes I was at the gateway to Wyvern's Pass thanks to my swift horse which I've decided to name Speedy, and after dealing with the few DeMordreyan douchebags blocking the way I found myself riding through a bustling war zone of undead versus orcs and goblins. This was a similar case in the desert region near Khorad-Nur but the numbers here were quite scary. Much more so if I had to run through this on foot!

In the distant south I finally found what looked like the last stand of Prince Valor's troops, and after getting some water for a dying soldier (I literally had to kill fifty enemies to do this) he decided to let me know the Prince was actually still alive, and that I should head to Mascarell to protect his girlfriend the Baroness Vilya. Not a problem with Speedy.

Is that you Custer?

In no time at all I'm back at Mascarell which so happens to be under siege by DeMordreyan troops just at that moment. For the most part I ignore them and pick up Vilya at her mansion. She knows the Prince is ok, and that we are to rendevouz with him at some nearby elf lodge in the forest. With her changed into her archer attire we proceed through the combat filled streets and eventually fight our way out with the help of some Mascarellian troops and then race through the bandit and drow forest to Valor's encampment where the Prince and Vilya are happily reunited. I leave them to their own devices as I talk to the sorceress Shareefa who openly ponders why the orcs are coming out of the desert. It's like they are running from something.