Borderlands 3: Siren Song

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

After some quick study, Tannis is fully sirened up and destroys the defenses to the Calypso's Cathedral and main base, letting the united Crimson Raiders attack the compound where Ava slays Troy, avenging Maya and absorbing his energy which activates her latent siren gene. Tannis takes her as her apprentice.

Unfortunately Troy had already begun unlocking "the Great Vault" having discovered that the moon was actually the key. Within was meant to be a universe destroying creature that his sister Tyreen wanted to absorb to cement her godhood - she was just running an errand on an Eridian homeworld to kill her father while waiting.

With that out of the way Tyreen warps back to Pandora only to find Lilith and Moze already waiting for her and is wiped out easily by the Mechwarrior. Alas the moon is now too close to Pandora and there's no stopping it anymore except through self sacrifice. Taking her siren powers back from Tyreen's corpse, Lilith becomes the Firehawk once more and uses her gift to fly up and then self detonate on the moon, pushing it away - resealing the Great Vault and saving Pandora.

Will we ever see her again? Probably because there's that Borderlands movie coming out.

Borderlands 3: The Sword and the Gunslinger

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

The next key pieces are on the planet Promethea, home of the Atlas corporation, but it too is under attack by both Maliwan and COV who are in clear alliance. Fortunately, Lilith knows of allies here as well, the first being Mad Moxxi who distracts most of the COV by participating and winning the galaxy wide broadcast of "Who wants to bang a bazillionaire" in nearby Lectra City, basically an all female city wide death match with the winner being able to bang the host in front of a large audience, both broadcast and live (with much audience participation to boot).

Lilith's second ally in the area is the space ninja (warframe?) Zer0 who makes use of the Sanctuary III to assault the Maliwan orbiting death star to end the war and earn the remaining key parts that Dr. Tannis needs to finish the key.  Maya volunteers herself to open said vault where she defeats the impressive guardian monster within only to then encounter the Calypso twins. While Tyreen absorbs the power of the defeated monster, Troy absorbs and disintegrates Maya herself.

While they replay her snuff film on a loop, Dr. Tannis discovers that this vault seems to be linked to another on Eden-6, the swampy home world of the Jakobs family who are also in conflict with the COV. They hire a trusty gunslinger squire named Clay - the lone merc who didn't simply take Calypso money and leave like a whore.

Borderlands 3: The Bluehairs

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

While the overweight mechanic Ellie repairs the Sanctuary III, mostly damaged by the idiot droid Claptrap, ship doctor and artifact specialist Dr. Tannis determines where the map is pointing to: a planet called Athenas. Luckily Lilith knows of an ally on that planet: her siren friend Maya who openly admits that they are guarding a piece of a vault key... and that they are under attack from Maliwan forces who are after the same thing!

Maya's also a cosplay favourite it seems.

Maya fights through the hi-tech Maliwan soldiers (the backpacks always seem to be their weak spot) to get to her idiot brat apprentice Ava who was busy not guarding a library as ordered and instead clearing a ratch infestation from the local brewery.

After a long and arduous climb (this is such a grindy and poorly designed level and is in an awkward place in the actual game) the blue haired pair then manage to reach the high temple, make heavy use cover to defeat the Maliwan raid leader and collect the key fragment before beaming up to Sanctuary.

Borderlands 3: Number Vaughn

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

Vaughn officially joins the Crimson Raiders when their leader, Lilith the Firehawk, comes to unintentionally rescue him. She had been looking for the leader of the Sunsmasher gang, which he was until they turned on him to join the rapidly expanding Children of the Vault (shortened to COV) Cult with a vault map piece (what Lilith was actually after) as their joining fee. 

Pants get in the way of fighting!

For his first mission, he quickly heads to the local COV broadcast center where they retrieve the map fragment from the COV Mouthpiece, who broadcasts messages from their "gods" the Calypso twins in a pretty cool boss fight that involves dodging soundwaves from giant speakers. Oh yeah, the new Crimson recruit Moze the Mechwarrior helps out, but Vaughn and his perfectly sculpted abs do most of the heavy lifting.

Upon returning to Lilith they find her stripped of her powers and dignity by the Calypso twins themselves (who happen to be sirens like Lilith) and a large group of their COV followers. Once the god twins have enough demeaning footage to publicly share over the ECHOnet and depart, Vaughn distracts the COV and lures them away while Moze saves their plaything and returns to their hidden base nearby: the Sanctuary III the space ship!

Clarent Saga Tactics: Clarent in Space

[Part of the Cursed story line]

The cultist isle is surprisingly empty, until Pascal shows up again and takes the team to fight in space!? Here demons just continuously spawn and both Minerva and Arthur meet their end. Cain works out that this Pascal is actually Baal (complete with two transformations) and the team get to work slaying him, which is an interesting loop.

Basically they position in such a way that Lilith lets lots of attacks and heals happen in one round, letting most of the team hammer Baal while Blossom and Sin deal with all the adds. Eventually Baal's third form is destroyed and the survivors return as heroes: Cain and Awan rule as king and queen, Blossom and Lilith build an orphanage and retire from adventuring, and Sin continues to hunt for leftover cultists as a witch hunter.

Oh, and why was it called the "Clarent" saga? Because Baal's magic weapon is the Clarent. Obviously... The end!

A bit of a silly story with lots of repeating maps (seriously that magic storage cave was annoying) but a decent enough tactic game. If you'd like to try it out it's free on steam!

Clarent Saga Tactics: Broken Crowns

[Part of the Cursed story line]

With their own magic weapons on hand, Abel's squad pushes toward Siegfried's castle - defeating his forces and closest allies to take their magic weapons too! Attacking the castle itself results in many of Abel's forces to be depleted but Arthur out snipes Brynhildr and Percival manages to slay Siegfried in his throne room. Abel is established as king of those regions and takes Arthur's sister as his wife.

After Arthur and Percival leave to return to their own kingdom, Pascal informs Abel about an evil cult abducting children on a nearby island so Abel assembles his troops, fights some pirates for their ships, and sails to the wretched place to fight demons and undead. It is here that Pascal reveals himself to be one of the head cultists and betrays him - sacrificing Abel and his team for demonic purposes.

With his fall the cult quickly take over most of the continent, but a small group of time travelers composed of Cain (Abel's son), Awan (daughter of Siegfried), clerics Sarah and Sin, Blossom the mage and Lilith the dancer arrive to stop them. Somehow "dancer" is one of the best character classes here, as she can let someone else have an entire turn again. This eventually upgrades to "bard" which lets four people move again!

Eschalon: Double Edged

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Having emptied the first lock box, Rollo opens Lilith's next which holds a divine great sword! He takes the magnificent weapon then returns to the city proper, collecting an extra 500 gold coins from Mael for "killing Lilith and recovering her amulet". Rollo then pays the resident Amazon Sonya to master the blade until she can teach him no more. Feeling skilled, he sets off to leave Blackwater only to be confronted again by Mael. Now furious at Rollo's trickery, he lets loose his squads of Barrea mercenaries to finish him off.

The heavily armored swordsmen are certainly more than Rollo can handle so he falls back into the city where the guards and residents come to his aid. It is a blood bath, with only Sonya and two elderly shopkeepers being the survivors of Blackwater. Rollo defeats Mael in combat and the merchant barters information on Rollo's brother, Ragner, in exchange for him letting him go. Rollo agrees, and Mael reveals the goblins at the sinking town of Vela have him before taking his leave. While Rollo keeps his word, Sonya makes sure Mael doesn't get far and executes him after cutting off his legs.

Apparently she has a book? LOL.

With Blackwater now deserted, Sonya escorts the two shopkeeps back to Aridell while Rollo goes to Vela - fighting off many goblins in the town and the surrounds. Unfortunately his swordsmanship is nullified by goblins wearing suicide kegs, as well as goblin archers floating out on rafts. Unable to push deeper into the town he opts to train a bit more first in the wilderness, defeating a boat load of pirates on a beach and a horde of slimes at a marsh before finding a beautiful castle in the middle of the woods...

Insight: The exploding goblins hurt all those around them so if they are going to explode anyway, try get them to hit their friends too - especially other exploding goblins as they chain react.

Eschalon: A Letter to Yourself

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Yup, there are dinosaurs in the woods!

Lucky the raptors are very territorial and don't pursue out of their part of the woods. Soon Rollo arrives at the city of Blackwater, which he pays a 100 gold fee to enter. He looks around for work again and finds a sly looking merchant named Mael who is offering a tidy sum for anyone that kills the druid Lilith and brings him her amulet. Rollo hides the fact that she's already dead, and that he already has her amulet while offering Mael a drink in hopes to get more clues as to what the amulets mean.

Unfortunately Mael only reveals his unfortunate past of being an important merchant leader before having something valuable stolen from him. He pursued the thief by ship but was caught in a storm that crashed him upon this continent with no means to pursue and is now working to rebuilt his wealth. Clearly not getting anything useful, Rollo says he'll consider the offer then leaves to explore the rest of the large city - finding the corpse of a murder victim in one house, lying in a pool of blood that was staining the ransacked mess around him.

By chance, Rollo discovers a torn paper in the garbage that holds a pass phrase for the tavern. Upon using it, the tavern owner takes him through some magic protections and into a large vault below where he asks to see his ID Keys. It turns out, these are the amulets - they aren't magic at all! The crypt amulet opens a lockbox that contains a huge gem and a note from himself saying that this gem is the only thing that can stop the goblin invasion. It goes on to explain that he used a forgetfulness potion on himself so that the goblin leader, Gramuk, won't be able to track him with his uber-mindreading powers. Unfortunately the gem was found by him and his brother Ragner, and if only one of them was reading the note then the other was likely already captured by the goblin forces. Uh oh.

Insight: The well in Blackwater is one of the best healing sources around.

Eschalon: The Runner

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Asking around in Aridell about the necklace gave Rollo a lead. Apparently the druid Lilith who lives in the vast, Tangletree forest, was known to be wise in all matters in regards to mystical amulets so that's where he plots his next course. Before departing, he is also warned about the expanding goblin empire, but that's not enough to stop an adventurer like him. It isn't goblins he runs into though, it is a bunch of brigands demanding a toll fee of 75 gold.

Such a fee is well within his means so Rollo accepts and they let him pass. Or at least, gives him a head start... for soon after a small brigade of bandits is hot on Rollo's tail, hooting and hollering for his blood. He has no choice but to run and happens to reach the bordertown of Darkford whose guards and citizens bravely rush into battle against the oncoming threat. While the brigands are wiped out it is a pyrrhic victory as only two guardsmen (barely) survive the encounter. They pair manage to give directions to Lilith though, and after a few days Rollo finds her hut in the middle of the forest.

Making a bee line for the house.

Alas, she is unwilling to help Rollo without first getting a task out of him: to slay the hive queen wasp who is taking over the woods. The hive queen is very clever though, as before Rollo gets far from Lilith's cottage a swarm of giant wasps attack the pair. The druid kills enough of them before getting stung to death for Rollo to survive. Upon searching her corpse he finds another almost identical triangle amulet which he takes before fleeing the wasp forest into a thicket filled with... raptors!? Cursing his luck, Rollo runs for his life once more.

Insight: Just like in D&D, door ways are good choke points to defend against superior enemy numbers.

Borderlands 2: Eaten by a Rumor

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

After surviving the betrayal, we race to the treasure but are quickly devoured by the Leviathan, a giant sand worm who supposedly guards the lost treasure. Didn't mention it till now cause, well, it was just rumor... until it ate us.

Captain Scarlett is in here too, and after a short scuffle I take her gun and kick her pirate booty further into the monster's poop chute just before it barfs DL, Jim and I back out. Guess it didn't like the gunfire in it's belly, but having us outside meant its own doom.

In under a minute, the Leviathan was dead and right under him - the lost pirate treasure! As the Firehawk thought, this decent loot would certainly help Sanctuary... so we sold it to them for some nice moneys! CHA-CHING! As for Scarlett - not sure if she made it out, but if she did she'll certainly be shit-faced. Literally.

We hunt down her remaining crew without much trouble - until we reach her engineer Hyperius the Invincible. This heavily shielded guy comes with equally shielded loaders that need to be taken care of first. Luckily my buzz axe rampage is really good at making meatbicycles out of robots now, and despite the long fight we finally chop him up in the end! CHOP SUEY!

Gotta shoot those nuts before a third wind!

The last on the hit list is Master Gee, who truly is invincible - though there must be a secret with all the acidic worms that spawn in his arena. Having lost too much cash from "reconstruction" we decide to leave him for now and to train at the Badass Crater of Badassitude arena run by the delightful Mr. Torque. His favourite word is F*CK!

Instead of pirates, the bandits in this region are all Mad Max biker themed - complete with motorbikes and sidecars. Our first arena fight against waves of bikeys is really easy and it instantly brings us to #5 on the rankings - but to continue the climb, we need to first find a sponsor.

Insight: Undead Pirates who show up with normal mobs are far more dangerous than the Leviathan. These skeletal swashbucklers hit hard and are fricking tough due to their regenerating health. When you see one, burst it down ASAP.

---

Blaugust Bonus: "What is something you have lost along the way that you would love to have back?  Can be serious or frivolous." -SDWeasel

Anonymity. Good luck getting that back. :P

Borderlands 2: Get that Booty!

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

Concerned about future attacks, Firehawk asks our team to go gather funds to strengthen Sanctuary - and what better funds to look for than some lost treasure?! PIRATE TREASURE! ARRRRRRH!

The three of us head to the town of Oasis to begin the search where Jim finds an amazing Fastball grenade mod that features a tiny explosion but can be thrown far and insta-kills most regular enemies. Once DL repairs a nearby hovercraft it becomes really easy to murderize all the sand worms and pirate themed enemies in our way.

It's not long before another pirate - Captain Scarlett, invites us to her ship for a parley. She too is looking for the lost treasure, and is willing to split it with us if we help her find it. Since she's kinda hot despite missing more than a few body pieces, we say "Aye!"

She's the only one other than Moxxi who has "shrines" dedicated to her.

We need to assemble a lens that will reveal where the treasure is buried and she saves us time by simply giving us the first piece. We get the next two easily from the Pirate Union (flying their own hovercrafts) and a Hyperion convoy guarded by loader bots - easy prey for ramming. The next one is given to us by some old coot at the rustyards, but since it's in a locked chest - DL shoots it open and damages the part! LOL WHUUUUT? Thus begins a long trek to a refinery full of pirate-bots (obviously) to repair it.

Finally, with the lens complete - we head up to a really high lighthouse as per Captain Scarlett's instructions and use it to show to the world where the great treasure is buried. It's at this point she sends her crew to kill us while she herself races to the loot. Why Scarlett? WHYYYY! I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENNNDS....

Insight: Unlike the previous vehicles the hovercraft is a freaking tank which more than makes up for the weaker arsenal they can carry. To this end, it's faster to ram everything to death (where possible) instead of shooting them.

---

Blaugust Bonus: "Tell us about your physical creative space, and how it influences your content creation." -Krikket

My desk is full of loose papers which act as the diary for various games I play. Each side is titled and numbered so I know what they link to and having them in front of me encourages me to continue the notations.

Borderlands 2: The Stuff of Movies

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

With our fresh supplies of teeth, eyes and bombs we head on to the Hyperion Info Stockade which is like a giant library in the shape of an iridium refinery and guarded by a HUGE robot called Saturn! I think they named a planet after this thing! Good thing it's slow so Jim dual lazers it to death. DUAL LAZERZ!

That robot is taller than this house!

Using our supplies we find Jack's location and head there with a full assault team led by Slabby and Mordecai to counter all his Hyperion defences. Jack himself uses the Vault Key to summon "the Warrior", a giant flame humanoid stolen right out of Nausicaa. What? I watch Anime!

Much like it's anime counterpart, this Warrior is flawed and has a weakness we greatly exploit: bullets, lazers and rotary-axes into the heart! It dies without too much fuss and before Jack can beg for mercy DL puts a bullet in his head and saves Firehawk. We're totally badass heroes now! YEAH!

I wonder if they'll ever make a movie about us, one that Hollywood won't screw up... oh shiiieeeet. Too late!

Insight: Empty your pack before the final fight because the warrior is one big loot pinata!

---

Blaugust Bonus: "What's your process when creating a blog post?" -Paeroka

If I find a game I can write a story about, I keep a diary of loose papers on what I do in it and then much later condense all of that into blog posts. If it's more leaning towards a simple review, I try type that down within a week of playing/experiencing the media so it's still fresh in my head.

Once a post is ready in my digital text document (yep I use notepad), the corresponding papers get shuffled away into a drawer. Only after all the posts of that game are actually posted online do I then toss the relevant papers out for recycling.

Borderlands 2: Just Take It

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

While the leaders of Sanctuary plan a counter attack, we three amigos first go to distant Lynchwood in search of a "cursed gun", which Jim finds is really cursed since it prevents movement while drawn. Lynchwood is home to the bunny bandit army though, with respawning bad guys regularly -pooping- popping out from every shack. They are definitely allied with Hyperion too so we blow up their train and railroad, rob their bank and kill their female sheriff!

Turns out she was Handsome Jack's girlfriend so he's not very happy that I put a rocket in her mouth. He's even less happy when we go to the site of his nearly complete utopian city "Opportunity" and wreck the place for fun - destroying his statues, flooding build sites, exploding construction equipment and oh yeah... murder all his laborer bots and engineers!

The size of said rocket.

Since we're already in the process of destroying his hopes and dreams we then join the Sanctuary army to take the fight to their main base and assisted by Slab buzzard air support, battle through the soldiers, destroy their flying bunker and kill his evil suicidal bitch siren daughter! Just as we are about to take the artifact like taking a baby from their candy, Roland and Firehawk show up and make a mess of things, getting killed and abducted in that order. Uh, I mean, respectively! Yeah.

So Jack gets away with everything and we are left with nothing. While Slabby and Mordecai the birdless plan the next move, we kill some time hunting a giant skag, fighting in Moxxi's Ore Chasmic arena (against Hyperion), and nearly falling for Jack's traps by going to check on his grandma as well as nearly jumping off a cliff for money. He's a sly one this Jack fella. Good thing DL and Jim managed to hold me back!

Finally Slabby gives us a mission to get some supplies (and by supplies I mean bombs) from another gang called the Sawtooth. Shouldn't it be Sawteeth? Well it doesn't matter. They don't have teeth or eyes or bombs anymore. We took em. We took em ALLLLLL!

Insight: The most upstairs part of the flying bunker fight (just before the water) is a good spot to fight as the structure there provides a lot of cover.

---

Blaugust Bonus: "Tell us about some of your favorite protagonist(s) and explain why. Or talk about characters in which you can recognize yourself or parts of yourself." -Endalia

John Constantine, because he gets things done often via the hard choice even at the expense of his friends. Not seen so much with the Keanu Reeves movie version but every iteration voiced or played by Matt Ryan does this. Also, Batman because even if he keeps people alive, most of his allies end up disliking/hating him since "the mission" comes first. I don't have their gear nor talent, but if it comes down to sacrificing popularity or people for my own goals - you bet!

Borderlands 2: Trainwreck 2 - the Wreckening

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

Before going to steal the key to save the planet kinda deal, we opt to have some R&R first - delivering pizza to ungrateful lab rats, winning live grenades at the slot machines in Moxxi's bar (owie), and re-purposing a robot AI into a gun. A really cool, sentient gun.

Mmm that's some sexy pizza!

It's then off to the Tundra to hunt varkids (giant bugs) and meet with 13 year old bomb maker Tina. Varkid hunting is kinda slow thanks to local sniper Mordecai kill stealing all our shit. Anyway, Tina wants us to collect both bomb parts and tea party guests to help us steal the key, tasks that are pretty easy until an inebriated Jim murderizes the last tea party guest. Hah, and I thought I was the psycho!

Good thing Tina still makes us the rocket bombs, casually dressed as bunny dolls which we use to derail one of Jack's trains which was supposed to have his key. Of course, it's a trap. There is no key, just metal and circuits and bullets and rockets in robot shapes that we dismantle. At the same time Roland tells us that Sanctuary has come under heavy attack, and using some special gizmo Scooter rigged plus Firehawk's magic - gets the entire city airborne and teleports it of there. Our next job is simply to catch up!

Have you ever chased a flying, teleporting city before? There's a lot of ground to traverse. Ground slick with blood of the things in our way. Especially those annoying cloaking mini-dragon things. I like to hit them with corrosive bullets since the acid remains visible, even if they don't.

Insight: Letting the varkids coccoon and hatch into stronger versions is a good way to get loot.

---

Blaugust Bonus: "What is a favorite Quote/s, and tell us why." -Wilhelm Arcturus

"Happy wife, happy life." because it's true! :P

Borderlands 2: Firehawk - Ashes and Dust

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

On a quest to save Princess Roland, we three heroes find ourselves in pyromaniac valley - home of all things spicy, hot and burninating to find "the Firehawk" who supposedly knows which closet Roland is being held in. She certainly fits the bill.

Thinking with our fun heads, we mutually save each other from a massive attack by a rival gang - the Bloodshots. She says that Roland is in their castle, no doubt experiencing whatever it is Princess Peach feels while a prisoner to Bowser. But before we go rescue him the Firehawk wants us to check up on her cultists... they are actually really fun guys who seem only focused on setting themselves on fire. This is great as we get to help them burn. Win/win! They do go a bit far when they kidnap a few villagers for roasting though so upon Firehawk's command we ice them for good.

One of the best missions ever!

Then its off to rescue Princess Roland at the Bloodshot Castle Dam but they ain't stupid enough to open the gates for a random looking car so we have to drive all the way out to the Dust where we meet Ellie in her junkyard who offers to make us a "bandit technical" vehicle if we bring her the parts - which is really easy since we destroyed like ten of these cars before reaching her.

When asked why she's all the way out here and not in Sanctuary she says its to get away from her overbearing mom, Moxxi, and her creepy ex Scooter who also happens to be her step-brother. Yikes.

Insight: While in Gunzerking mode, Jim (Gunzerker) constantly regenerates health and ammo!

---

Blaugust Bonus: "What are some key sources of media (games/movies/etc) that have shaped your worldview?" -Mailvaltar

Ultima Online showed me early on both how evil some people can be as well as how awesome it is to work cooperatively. Hence I now always strongly prefer cooperative endeavors rather than competitive ones.

Borderlands Pre-Sequel: Vault of Elpis

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

Repairs on the Helios take some time, what with having to defend a Hyperion space supply drop from pirate space ships, getting the R&D specimens back into their cages, eliminating the plague infected worker cannibals in maintenance and dealing with a wandering alien in the trash compactor, so by the time all is back in order and I return to Concordia - Moxxi, Roland and Lilith are all long gone having stolen the coordinates for the vault I was meaning lay claim to on Elpis before the Lost Legion attacked! Fricking thieves!

I head to the location myself and make an ally in Captain Chef, some sort of space explorer claiming land for King Gril... Gilga... eh... "King Greg", but he doesn't really hang around to help fight the aliens guardians and lost legion eternals that are defending the vault. Gun loaders only help for the surface battles but deeper in it's just me and my digi-jacks that need to take care of everything - especially this four faced alien boss guy who gets HUGE for the second phase of his fight, which ironically is much easier than his first form.

The bigger they are, the easier they are to hit!

My reward for finally penetrating this vault? A silly little vault symbol that gives me flashes of future knowledge when I hold it. Of course, I only get around ten seconds with it before Lilith phasewalks in and brand-punches the symbol right into my face, promptly leaving me to get killed by the remaining aliens. Jokes on her as Captain Chef manages to pull me out and get me back to Nurse Nina at Concordia. My wounds are patched up, but I have a handsome mask made to cover the scar that Lilith bitch gave me. I am SO going to get back at her for this!

Insight: Kill eternals before they "ascend" or they will be fully healed. Also, double jump when the boss alien does a jump smash during phase 1 of his fight.

Borderlands Pre-Sequel: Not Eye to Eye

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

With robot production underway I could take some time to get a few other things done like find Pickle's lost sister who just ended up leaving again with Pickle's hard earned cash, setup a live creature smuggling operation with a Sir Hammerlock on Pandora who subsequently seems to have let loose a specimen called "Threshers", and find a suitable suitor for Nurse Nina who has a penchant for killing them with her love. All pretty cool stuff, but not as cool as finally being ready to retake the Helios with my allies!

I'm sure that smuggling rocket won't attract any attention at all!

The Lost Legion don't make it easy though with further shields setup that hinder progress which the science team, led by Dr. Gladstone, seems to take their time in disabling. That guy just seems to get more and more shifty... so I order him and most his team to be thrown out of an airlock. Can't be too careful with traitors these days! In their place I put a Dr. Nakayama who seems... a little too into me, but has an intellect only slightly higher than a claptrap so it should be fine.

With more gun loader support we finally push to the Eye of Helios, defeating the Lost Legion commander Zarpedon *giggle* what a stupid name. Roland and Lilith are a little shocked that the eye is an actual eyeball from a dead destroyer creature harvested from Pandora, and subsequently betray me by destroying it and half of the Helios along with it before running off! As much as I'd like to chase em down, I have to stay and try to repair the station - starting with the eye. Despite my best efforts, all I get it to do is explode all over again. DAMNIT!

Insight: Ugh, the maintenance space walk section of the Helios is one of the worst experiences ever. Go slow and look for jump pads.

Borderlands Pre-Sequel: Business Propositions

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

Since my previous action didn't sit quite well with everyone in Concordia I had to do some odd jobs to build up some capital and support like destroy some laser weapons for Mr. Torque (who hates them since they don't explode) and ally with some scav gangs only to then betray them for their sweet, sweet loot. Gotta hand it to the Lost Legion for getting people my side though because when they started using the Helios cannon to start blasting to the core of the moon and openly declaring their intentions to destroy it and everyone on it, that almost instantly made everyone in Concordia my ally.

The new plan is to retake the station with a militarized robot army so Roland and Lilith volunteered to look for a viable production plant while I looked for a suitable AI with a young scav associate named Pickle. He knew the way to a shipwrecked war class frigate that housed a top of the line AI that was eventually dubbed "Felicity". Of course, it was also home to pirates who made it really hard to reach the vessel and required more than a little explosive diplomacy to evacuate the premises.

We then joined up with the vault hunters at a run down Titan production plant and after removing the power suit enabled scavs there could finally get to work with constructing the robots with the help of specialist Dr. Gladstone and his small team of scientists. While there were some initial hiccups in Felicity refusing to become a weapon of mass murder, she quickly came on board after we scrubbed her personality and plugged her into a prototype constructor robot to become the mother of loaders.

Only obedience is necessary. Scrub free will!

Insight: The rocket version of moon zoomies is awesome. Keep shooting those infinite, enemy tracking missile salvos!

Borderlands Pre-Sequel: In Charge

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

I was expecting a few vault hunter visitors on Helios station today but not an unprovoked invasion by an entire fleet of Lost Legion marines! As expected, the maintenance loader drones and claptrap units are worthless in combat which left the station close to defenseless. Without any other option, I simply had to escape by myself to the moon called Elpis. In the rush, I kinda forgot that there is no atmosphere there but luckily a scavenger named Springs managed to save my bacon with her re-breather Oz Kits.

"Heart of Gold" always clears anything that comes before it.

In exchange for a few favors, like eliminating some competing scavengers, she also hooked me up with one of her Moon Zoomie buggies to get me the town of Concordia where I could ask for help in retaking the station. Unfortunately, everyone from the town mayor to the two vacationing vault hunters Roland and Lilith refused so I had to ask my ex-wife Moxxi instead. She's one hot and smart curvy package, and luckily I caught her on a good day!

Using some black market tech I managed to triangulate a jamming signal that was screwing with the rest of the Helios defenses... back to the mayor of Concordia! Yeah, I had to go talk to him about that and we came to an agreement. I'd get to turn it off and he'd get... a bullet to the head! I'm sure Springs can run the town much better than that ass hat.

Insight: The dots on the map are some natural oxygen vents where you can refill your tank.

A Comedy of Errors

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! In this entry I am following my custom scenario "A Curse of Iron". You can follow the rest of the story here!

I had initially planned to enter via the secret Companions entrance but wasn't able to scale the damn wall up to the opening. The guard standing behind me must have thought it amusing since he just waited there till I gave up before arresting me. Figured that like Riften, this was probably the easiest way in so I surrendered and found myself in Dragonsreach dungeon. Slipped out via the floor grate pretty easily and found the prisoner storage chest within reach from the tunnels below... only my pick broke. Damnit! Slightly frustrated, I left all my gear and cooked food and made my way out of there collecting what I could while sneaking around the guards barracks.

Once top side I was careful to hide behind the houses and time the guard patrol to enter Breezehome and raid it of any useful stuff. This turned out to only be food and hides. Better than nothing, so I used the nearby smithy to make a new set of superior leather armor then snuck inside to steal an iron sword and dagger. Wasn't quite sure how I was going to get clues from the tavern since the guards kept a close eye on the place, so instead I asked Mila, a little girl for some assistance since Tolfdir mentioned kids could detect that same "vibe" I did. She mentioned something about a creepy old woman so I checked the feeble lady first who was very rude but otherwise ok. The blacksmith couple were also fine as were a passing red guard guy and another random lady on the street. Timing these "chats" was getting to be tedious.

Finally an nice old lady named Lilith came by and I knew precisely what the kid meant - she seemed in a hurry to get out of town. I politely bid her a good day and as soon as she walked past I slit her throat right there on the road before she exited the town proper. Then came my grand escape plan. I snuck my way as far as I could to Jovasskr to use the secret wolf exit but was sighted at the upper crossroads near the loud priest, so I ran dodging arrows to the cave door only to find it wouldn't open! So much for that. I tried scaling the walls a few times but that wasn't getting me anywhere so in the end it came down to me sprinting out the front door, being chased by a large group of guards across the field. Must have been quite a sight for the dragon that was circling overhead. Fortunately for me it decided to come down on my pursuers leaving me scott free to escape into the North.

Queue: Yakety Sax!