Sacred: Mystdale

[Part of the Sacred Journey.]

Cave fish are big, slow moving ugly things that can easily be out walked in their natural state. However they have an attack where they leap like a heat seeking missile, leaving a trail of fire behind them, which always hits and always stuns. They were getting more and more plentiful as we progressed that it was becoming rather irritating to traverse the swamp. Fortunately, once we crossed the bridge to the lands of Mystdale the theme changed to that of undead and rogue mages (who of course have the paralysation spell, damnit).

Mystdale itself was home to non-hostile wizards, though they all came in different flavours with many types I've previously fought being present here. Most of the quests related to escaped experiments (collecting their brains), or slaying undead or dealing with accidentally summoned demons. Indeed, killing an ogre referee who accepted bribes to let teams win in the wizardry football league and assisting to stop a bunny plague were the off beat ones but most memorable of the area.

It would be cool if Gambit (X-men) was a referee. Exploding cards!

Once that was all done it was time to meet Shareefa at that castle itself to hand her those four elements that were a pain in the rear to collect. Her response is "you are late". I seriously want to slay this woman now, especially when she says we are missing the last element - the element of the Void and true to form she sends me to fetch it from the tower of the dufus from the intro who screwed up his summoning ritual. Fortunately there is a portal close to my destination in the woods nearby, and the Sakkara cultists and their undead cronies guarding it were easily dispatched with the four extra knights behind my back.

Sacred: Dam Fetch Quest

[Part of the Sacred Journey.]

Highmarsh was a relaxing enough diversion, seeing me deal with thieving gargoyles, collecting some weed (really), and allying with a friendly dark elf named Valaria  for a short time to kill some Sakkara cultists and their pet demon. I also wondered about the economy of such a place when I child can pay me five thousand gold coins for returning a smiley bunny to her. Unfortunately it was soon time for me to make my way back up the mountain and into the next set of drow infested mines, this one being far more annoying than the last in that it was intentionally made as a maze instead of a mine. It was very slow going until I reached the second floor where there were no drow units at all, instead there were just a variety of ghosts and the occasional, easily avoidable cave fish.

With nothing there that could paralyze me (cave fish being the exception but they were very few) I could sprint past all the foes and activate the dam lever to drain the water before ducking out via a convenient escape hatch. I still had to jump down the mountain again past more drow, but once I got into the water temple itself it was just a small two level dungeon the first being one small room with spiders and the second just having ghosts and cave fish again, most of which I avoided simply by jumping to the elemental receptacle (and back) gaining the element of water.

With all the elements now in my possession it was time to head towards Mystdale Castle, where Shareefa said she would be waiting for me. You'd have thought she might at least get some of the elements herself but noooooo. On the road there I found the miserable swamp village of Gloomoor which had a nasty spider infestation (which no one seemed to mind). I did help out as much as I could though, by collecting spider venom sacs, rescuing trapped lumberjacks, and destroying a lich in a nearby dungeon. That last task was crazy with the amount of undead scum present, the type you needed to slay three times if you didn't have the "undeath death" potion, and there were simply too many of them and not enough potions so it became a mad dash to slay the lich and escape. The BFG was made good use of here, but even it couldn't clear out all of the horde. I just killed the leader and escaped, that's enough of a win for me.