Dark Souls II: Creepy Crawlies

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

It's the poison that kills me... really?

Equipped with the rings I bought from the cat, I return to the misty lion man ruin and manage to talk to the previously silent man scorpion who introduces himself as Tark, possibly once known as Tarkus until something bad happened to him in Anor Londo. Apparently he wants me to help him slay his female counterpart who I had previously run into. Lucky for me he comes along to assist and on our second attempt (I misjudged the aggro swapping on the first one) we manage to slay her. Tark is satisfied and returns to his domain while I push on to a strange cavern full of locked doors which I quickly run out of keys for.

The place is guarded by slow moving elephant knights and ... really big dwarves(?) who are easy enough to run past. Eventually I emerge at a deep valley and after fighting through a small army camp I make my way down some dark, spider infested caves into a church where I have to slay a whole bunch of hollows and their magic wielding priest.

Oh, hell no.

Lower down is the continuation of the town, and it is absolutely infested with the poisonous arachnids (and some man-spiders), to the point that they start coming in swarms. Good thing the bastard sword has a wide sweeping arc attack which is effective at small group extermination. The lowest building seems to be where they are coming from, and I soon find out why: it's their lair.

Reading is Bad for You

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

Our next stop was to retrieve a holy warhammer for the guy who hears voices in his head at a bandit cave near Whiterun. The first thing I encounter when I get there is an angry face of a guard who attacks me out right (kinda wanted here too). He's soon joined by another, and then by a pair of bandits. Then out of the blue, a familiar cat figure appears - Bane who had been tailing us decided to come out of the shadows to assist. "Khajiit guards your back," he says smugly. With now three of us, there was little danger as we raided the cave and then a second location for more schematics before returning to Dawnguard HQ.

Alas, it turns out the moth priest had been blinded by his own folly and now I have to go do a ritual to read them. The place was easy enough to find, a well hidden and very pretty glade. After attracting some bugs to me (yuck) I managed to read all three elder scrolls in succession (I think purely to make use of the open scroll animation) and got a vision of a map before snapping out of it. At least I'm not blind!

Alternative Solution: Elder Braile Scrolls.

Seems our next task is to retrieve some bow of a god, which is also what Lord Harkon wants apparently. Just as we were on our way out a large mob of vampires and a pair of gargoyles show up! How did they know we were here? We are forced back by the overwhelming numbers and I lose track of both Bane and Serana. I opt to take the high ground on the opposite bank and setup a firing position from there. The exploding bolts and fast reloading crossbow sure come in handy here. One of the thralls actually makes it up to my position but I just shout him off the cliff to certain death.

Eventually I spot Bane far below fighting like a wild cat, even though he is knocked down again and again. It's still enough to keep the enemies in the open though and eventually I snipe the last one with a slow motion headshot. With the last enemy defeated I regrouped with both Bane who had survived the ordeal, and Serana who seemed to be badly wounded (crawling). Got her to feed on an enemy thrall (possibly the one that went sky diving) and upon leaving she was back to her usual self.

Too Good to be Bad

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

I took the douchebag Cutter for patrol next. First up was to patrol that cave I had marked earlier - a super dark place filled with spiders and trolls with a wierd shrine at the bottom, then returning to Fort Dawnguard to see how things were progressing. There was a new gate and gate guard for starters, as well as two new female hunters, and they had a visiting vampire looking for me. Yep, Serana walked into the den of vampire hunters. Seems she wants to help us read the elder scroll she has and after managing to convince Isran not to smite her (or torture her further) we learn we need a Moth Priest to do the task. One happens to be in the province too, how convenient.

Serana doesn't trust Cutter either though so she opted to remain with the other vampire hunters while we go do quests. Just read that line again to get an indication of how much of an asshole Cutter is. Anyway we complete other tasks on our hunt for the priest including slaying a random master vampire and retrieving schematics from those try hards, the Summerset Shadows. We get a lead that points us to Dragonbridge but once there the townspeople suggest I ask the guards about the moth priest. I do just that and they reply with "You have commited crimes against the people of Skyrim!" and attack, so naturally we kill them in self-defence.



And we all know offense is the best defense!

 

To make absolutely sure I even ask the penticus occultus agent stationed there if he knows anything about the guy and he replies with a smug "Yes?" without even standing up and leaving his arms crossed over his chest. This bastard wasn't going to tell me anything so I beheaded him too with my opening attack. Not like I was going to let any Imperial Scum live anyway. With no leads I decided to look around and found a carraige down the road. A trail of blood and a foolishly dropped letter pinpointed where the kidnapped priest was taken, and Cutter and I made short work of the vampire kidnappers and knocked some sense into the old dude while we were at it too.

With the mission complete I returned to Skyhaven Temple to pick up Lynn who was next on rotation as Cutter bragged about his feats to the remaining members of my small group. Despite my dislike for the guy he is actually proficient in what he does - killing things and bragging about it afterwards.