BDO: Case Closed

[Part of my Adventures in Black Desert Online]

Thankful for my previous aid at the Northern wheat plantation, Elina Leight - who happens to be its owner and knows of my interest in Illezra, sends word via Nella that the Shen merchant guild is in possession of another of Illezra's "rings" and so I quickly buy it from Neruda Shen in exchange for a magical Dreighan blade (magical in name only I think). This one is the earth ring which I hand in again to the Tarif sorcerers who put me back on the case.

As they already found one in my absence I am sent to locate and retrieve the water ring from its ocean resting place (right beside Altinova) and then am sent to get the ring of wind from a very sneaky, and very strong, monstrous bandit who I can't seem to hurt! It turns out he is invulnerable to everything... except water balloons blessed by the Church of Elion. Yep, I literally use holy water balloons to win this boss fight, which is annoying since you can't dodge while holding them.

Handing these rings in reveals that the lead sorceress on this case is none other than Illezra herself, having used someone else's body to avoid detection. With all the rings in her possession, she turns into Captain Planet a huge skeleton/mud golem thing who is weak to one thing: easily craftable magic bullets. With rifle in hand it only takes three of these to end the miserable witch, and as a bonus the person she was hiding in is freed, unharmed and back to her younger self - with no memories of anything she had done. Probably the best result.

Kinda sad I don't get to fight her white witch form...

Insight: The holy water balloons and magic bullets are only useful in their respective quests. I tried them on random wild life afterwards and they did zero damage.

BDO: The White Witch

[Part of my Adventures in Black Desert Online]

The forbidden tome sheds some pretty damning light on the Church of Elion, which is reluctantly confirmed by the head priest at a local monastery when shown the torture chambers in the haunted monastery basement. It turns out a radical sect of the Church is still into preserving still living Kzarka tentacles and kidnapping then sacrificing people in hopes of resummoning the creature so Nella and I head to their mountain temple and kick their tentacle loving asses... Uh, that might have come out wrong.

Hello, ugly.

Anyway, we reach the main sacrifice chamber at the exact moment they summon Kzarka but before we can fight it properly a magic spell cast by a white witch knocks us away. She then proceeds to one hit kill-steal the creature and takes its soul before teleporting away.

Since such a powerful individual could be a threat, Nella tasks me with chasing her down - with the only hint being her clothing resembling that worn in the Eastern lands of Mediah. She does provide a tier 5 horse to assist in this task, which is awesome as it means I don't have to sprint everywhere anymore. Yeah, I probably should have bought a horse much earlier huh?

Insight: The shadow knights in that monastery hit really hard, fortunately they are very slow to draw/summon their weapons so kill them quick before they are ready! Just don't try it on the purple rank ones in the hidden corridor. Eek!

BDO: Nella's Quest

[Part of my Adventures in Black Desert Online]

As a free agent again, I find work assisting the local military in suppressing enemies at the border in the form of Rhutum orcs, always nicely grouped Mansha goblins, and an unending swarm of catfishmen. It sounds ridiculous, but the lake catfishmen are the most dangerous foes I've faced thus far mainly due to the mob density. I literally slay just over a thousand of them.

Ugh, too many catfishmen!

Afterwards I help a newbie knight named Nella investigate a forbidden book which is banned by the Church of Elion. To find a copy we first travel to the lumber village of Trent and help them harvest some Treants (the huge ones are spectacular to watch), then on to the hunters village of Behr which is having a problem with a nearby massive graveyard filled with undead.

These skeletons are certainly tough but quite slow, and with other adventurers here stemming the undead it isn't long before their source is found: Hexe Marie, an ancient witch who once summoned a world-level threat known as the Kzarka! She's pretty easy to kill though - easier than her minions! I suppose it's just because she's really old. We find the forbidden text on her person and Nella gets to translating it. I'm now level 55 and get a cool +15 sword as a bonus.

Insight: Press V to turn into a ball of smoke to escape a dangerous spot! There's a long cool down on it though so try to save it for when you need it.