AC Odyssey: Relic Hunter

[Part of the AC Odyssey journal]

Aletheia had been watching Alexios for sometime now, having gained her attention ever since he defeated the minotaur long ago. Since then he had faced triumphed over other monsters - the sphinx, medusa, and a number of cyclopses while in his new profession of "relic hunter". A profession that was leading him directly here, to the Gateway to the Lost City.

Only one person now stood in his way, the ancient known as Pythagoras who was also Alexios' true father. Wielding the Staff of Hermes, Pythagoras was gifted with knowledge and magic but at the same time corrupted  by the power flowing through him. Unwilling to share this gift with the world he attacked his son, and after a brief battle was disintegrated as Alexios took the Staff for himself.

Showdown at the Lost City!

"Hello Alexios," said Aletheia through the staff, which startled the so called Eagle Bearer. "I am Aletheia."

Alexios felt a little silly talking to a shiny stick, but was told plainly about the burdens of its gift and that if he learned to master the staff, it wouldn't corrupt him like it did Pythagoras. Instead it would make him near immortal.

"How do I master the staff?" Alexios questioned.

"For that, you must journey to the Underworld," Aletheia answered. "Are you ready?"

Insight: If you liked facing the legendary creatures then the Fate of Atlantis DLC is definitely for you as it features three entirely new maps!

The Cursed: Eleran and the Medusa

[Part of the Cursed story line.]

Using fireballs to clear a way through the melee, the team fights past minotaurs, drow and Zhentarim before finally reaching Dexam and his column of minotaurs. The lady in purple also reveals herself to be a medusa!

The mages open with their biggest spells, with Eleran intentionally incinerating Dimswart who was too smart to live (and whose usefulness had come to an end). This infuriated Dexam who quickly was running out of minotaurs. The medusa used her petrifying gaze on Eleran, but the mirror he brought reflected it and turned her into stone, killing her.

Unfortunately, Dexam also used a petrification ray at him at the same time turning Eleran into a stone statue. This left an opening for Melia to backstab the beholder but it wasn't enough to kill it - resulting in her disintegration next.

How does this thing fly... or poop for that matter?

Finally it is Sir Siegfried that slays the eye tyrant, then leads the injured survivors onward to search for an exit, leaving the statues of Eleran and the medusa behind.

BattleTech: The Wise Man

[Part of the BattleTech Story.]

Downtrodden with the company's losses, Gabriel finds himself at an Orbit Bar while the other team members get some needed shore leave. There he meets another mercenary leader called Wild Jim who offers him some advice on battle tactics. He takes the lessons onboard and regroups at the Agro where Medusa has returned with a new hire, Michael Gray, who strikes Gabriel as an unhinged serial killer type - perhaps his claim of being stuck in some bunker with an annoying woman for years (whom he presumably murdered) is actually true.

The next job is to assassinate a Directorate leader, one of the House Arano rebels. Gabriel deploys the last three mechs they have, all lights. Discord manning the Locust, Rattlesnake in a Spider, and Medusa in the trusty Vindicator. They come up against five mechs led by a Cicada, and while Discord is wounded  (and his mech damaged) in the clash they find victory through hit and run tactics ("always be on the move" as suggested by Jim) and salvage a Jaguar and a Jenner in the process.

Lady Arano then asks for their assistance in taking over a spaceport on a nearby planet, specifically to destroy their command center within to slow an advancing Directorate fleet. Gray, Rattlesnake, Medusa and Master deploy, and are assisted by Restoration engineers who manage to turn the local turrets into allies midway through the mission. Gabriel manages to sneak around the defending mechs in his Jenner to destroy the command post while the other three keep them busy using Jim's advice of targeting specific sections to go for ammo storage or sever weaponry from opponents. Gray in the Spider is melted early on though, and Medusa is really banged up in the Vindicator but manages to reach the extraction point just in time.

Despite that, Medusa never wakes from his wounds and dies on the operating table of the Argo. 

People die off the battlefield too.

BattleTech: Run Faster

[Part of the BattleTech Story.]

Gabriel awakes just in time to see the Argo on fire. Luckily, Judge and Medusa react quickly to put it out. Apparently the new cabling for the training pod was somewhat faulty. "Don't worry Master, you just continue to rest up. I got this," assured Medusa before departing for another deployment. This time it was an escort mission to get four APCs filled with weaponry to an extraction point. The pirates are interested in said weaponry too and field two lances of mechs to stop them.

It is a mad dash to the waypoint, and when Judge is tripped up by heavy autocannon fire her sister Tranquility turns around to martial arts the pursuers. This buys Judge sometime to recover and limp onward but is knocked down again. Before she can stand a second time a rain of missiles falls upon her, one breaching the cockpit glass and penetrating through her right shoulder before exploding.

Tranquility yells in despair as her sister dies, leaving her open for an enemy Shadowhawk to punch through her rear armor. She is completely surprised to find herself right in the palm of the enemy mech, who then promptly crushes her in a shower of blood. During this time one of the APCs is also disabled, but the rest of the team extract successfully. The 1 million+ credits Medusa negotiated for payment barely covers their losses.

Get us out of here!

BattleTech: Rookie Trials

[Part of the BattleTech Story.]

With Gabriel unconscious in the medbay and a few pilots down, Medusa and Glitch decide to hire more help - specifically a team of rookies each for trials.

There's no shortage of them apparently!

Medusa recruits the Blaugustian Discord, sly guy Rattlesnake and prim and proper gal Broadway whom he takes to ambush a convoy. Broadway, riding a Jenner, doesn't even survive the first exchange of bullets leaving the others a harder time to complete the mission. They still do, but right afterwards Rattlesnake makes the mistake of dismounting from his mech to claim some "personal" salvage and is ambushed by humanoid insect like natives. He fights them off but is wounded in the exchange.

Meanwhile Glitch assembles a team composed of the sisters Judge and Tranquility as well as a man with piercing eyes with the callsign Shiver. They deploy on a what's meant to be an easy mission of destroying a pirate lance acting as forward observers, but everything goes to hell when a second lance arrives in a flanking position. Glitch manages to get her team up to a lake in the mountains which helps the mechs keep cool while firing but it isn't enough for Shiver who overheats his mech, making him an easy target for an enemy Blackjack. Shiver dies burning in agony.

Glitch manages to keep the others at bay for the most part, with Judge showing off her evasive piloting skills while Tranquility messes up some of the enemies with her robot jujitsu. Unfortunately an enemy manages to flank Glitch and kill her from the back, moments before Tranquility destroys it with a fist through the chest and earning a mission victory. Seeing something must be done with all the novices, Medusa orders the tech team to start building training pods so they can practice and gain skills before hitting the battlefield for real.

BattleTech: Master's Marauders

[Part of the BattleTech Story.]

Gabriel somehow escaped capture that day, and found himself joining a rag tag mercenary group called the Marauders. It didn't take long for them to realize he was the best of them and after sometime they decided to make him their leader, earning him the moniker of "Master".  It was after getting double crossed by some contractors (again) that he really sat down to look at the company finances. With the debts to the bank on top of all the other repairs, roster salaries and space ship expenses, things did not look good for Master's Marauders.

He decided to start negotiating contracts with better salvage rights, since selling recovered gear seemed to be more lucrative than getting a flat fee. Not that the tactic worked very well since it was mech parts that sold well, and his lance was mostly going up against various vehicles of pirate factions. Fortunately a mysterious contract came out of the blue, requesting his team to retrieve an old, crashed spaceship from a pirate moon base. The pay was huge, so regardless of the risks his second in command - a smelly guy named Medusa convinced Gabriel to deploy the squad.

With covering fire from Glitch's vindicator, Dekker in his agile spider mech was quick to reach and disable the turret generators protecting the pirate base. Once there it became more a brawl against the numerous but poorly maintained enemy forces. This is where Behemoth showed off her martial arts skills in the Shadowhawk, engaging in robot-fu against the pirate queen and her cohorts.

Melee is a great attack alternative for overheating mechs!

With the day won and the pirates cleared out the mysterious contact reveals herself to be none other than Lady Kamea herself, and expresses her desire for Gabriel's team to aid in her restoration movement.

Dark Souls II: Cool Turtle

Tales from Dark Souls - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

Since the Belfry is another dead end, I revisit the Gutter next - since I have a key to a locked door there now. In a room littered with poison shooting statues I find my old armor! Erm, I mean Havel's old armor! It still weighs a ton, but with the super defense it provides I warp back to Earthen Peak more confident than ever. The climb is definitely more survivable now, and after easily defeating a giant demonic turd I am joined by Devotee Scarlett who is a bit of a punk/cleric.

You thought I was exaggerating huh?

She guides me to a nearby windmill and keeps pointing and gesturing at it until I torch the thing which makes her happy. Young people eh? There's nothing that really stops us from continuing our ascent. Even the fire sorceresses are easily slammed now, and when the pyromaniac Jester Thomas joins there is no stopping our little band. Even the medusa boss of the place had no chance. I just sat and watched as Thomas and Scarlett tore her apart.

Easiest "boss" fight so far.

They depart after that victory leaving the path open for me to a keep made of iron, sitting in a moat of lava. Because that's obviously the best place to build these things. On the approach I am invaded by Fencer Sharon who has no chance getting through my defense. After sending her packing, Armorer Dennis attacks next - and he has some cool magic sword powers. Not cool enough to win though (thank you Estus flask!). I make sure to toss his corpse into the lava so he won't show up again.

Sacred: The Lost Swamp

[Part of the Sacred Journey.]

Gloomoor had a rather active arena, and I wasn't going to pass up the free experience from going ten rounds of increasing difficulty against local critters in there. By doing so I became eligible to join some sort of adventure team for the small price of 100,000 gold pieces. I seriously had enough to spare so I thought, why not? After paying I was given the location of where to go and made my way through the swamp, past the resident swamp dragon (yes I killed it, too dangerous to have those things wandering around), and into a small but impressive encampment of adventurers led by the barbarian H'Run to seek out some great treasure in the "lost swamp" nearby.

Well he and his seven buddies didn't last very long against the highly poisonous foes in that region, leaving me to discover a small goblin settlement in the midst of the madness, whose shaman asked me to help with a sacrifice to the forest god to spare their village from the horrible spiders and trolls lurking around. He even provided a goblin warrior to assist but that guy didn't last long either, and frankly I was going through potions rather quickly myself.

Looking at her chest is less dangerous than looking at her face.

 

Turns out I was supposed to be the sacrifice, but that didn't work out so well for the forest god - an annoying medusa that could summon little medusas. After slaying her the goblins changed their tune, begging for their lives in exchange for the true location of the treasure. I figured that without their god they would be dead soon anyway so I let them live and found the "great treasure" to be more of a "meh" treasure. Good XP in there though, but I had to restock on supplies back at the now almost abandoned adventurer's camp on the way out.

Sacred: I Hate Drow

[Part of the Sacred Journey.]

The element of Earth was my next goal, but before reaching it came across Bravewall Village which was having some drow, spider, vandalism and poisoning issues which were all pretty easily solved. Once done I continued, sprinting past the many drow forces fighting the undead scum in the region, some of whom were mounted. I still managed to avoid most of the fights and saved some time by jumping up sheer cliff faces with combat jump until I finally reached their fortress mine.

This place was bloody huge, dark, and crawling with enemies and traps of the poison variety. Some of the drow also have that paralysation spell that I absolutely hate as it really slows everything down. Eventually I found and defeated their priestess and their medusa guardian, reached the bridges over the abyss and found the Element of Earth and reached level 30. This one paragraph represents hours of gameplay. >_<

Almost like this.

Thankfully there was a gate out to the entrance which saved me from having to navigate my way back out, so I immediately began making my way to the final element of water which was pretty close by which I got to by jumping down the mountain. Alas the entryway to the temple was flooded, and I was informed by the local NPC that I'd have to go back up the mountain to fiddle with the dam (which is accessible via more drow mines) to gain access to it. Peeved off at this turn of events I decided to make a detour to the nearby Highmarsh Village to restock and do tasks that don't involve those damnable drow for a bit.