Darkest Dungeon: Casualties at Arrival

Reports from Darkest Dungeon - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

This place is cursed, and that's saying something given where we are. The gun slinger Isey and I were the first to arrive at this forsaken hamlet which seems to be run by a crazed caretaker named Penultimo. It's amazing the place still stands given the disrepair and the amount of horrors lurking in all the nearby areas.

At least the boss wasn't joking when he said that more help would arrive as soon allies and other adventurers just seeking gold or glory began to arrive just days behind us. I took the initiative to announce myself the leader of this little group and ordered everyone to focus their efforts on hunting the necromancer at the nearby ruins.

It is clear who is the leader!

The Khajiit pirate Skullcat, the ex-princess Dusk, Sultan of Swing and Gamesting were all victims of the bandits he had hired as security. Even Isey was fatally shot by one of their crossbows. Deeper in lay other problems in the form of cultists who slew Melentia and the Nerevarine Brutus. We even had one loss, Chara, to spider venom. 

This would not dissuade our attempts though, as with each successful expedition I knew we drew closer to his lair.

-Fawadin

Skyrim: Even in Death

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

Well, that's an ominous looking robot...

The Nerevarine was hunting down some giant robotic WMD, and it was really difficult to miss when we found entered its room! All of us were having trouble damaging it though since it seemed to repair itself incredibly quickly. A series of levers around the chamber seemed to be the tacticians way of working out how to defeat the robot but I chose a different path: Slow time. Under the effects of that shout, the mechas regeneration could not keep up with my damage output and I sent him flying.

Literally.

After thanking us for our assistance, the Nerevarine said his goodbyes and headed off to wherever Azura guided him next but not before telling us that he sighted the strange Ebony Warrior camped nearby. Before we could investigate Mandryn showed up though and he was not pleased with us letting the Nerevarine go, so much so that he attacked tried to attack. Bo gave him a few new windpipes. A letter on his person revealed him to be a member of the Morag Tong.

Guess he wasn't expecting that!

With a shrug it was time to deal with the Ebony Warrior, but I wanted to make a pit stop first: at a dragon roost to tame a reverend dragon! Challenge accepted Ebony Warrior! With Bo, Red Shadow and myself atop this beast the Ebony Warrior was torn limb from limb, though to his credit it did take longer than I expected. Sure hope he wasn't expecting a fair duel! After he was dragon poop I decided to report back to Njada in Windhelm about our success, only to find Morag Tong assassins already defiling her corpse when we arrived.

And so, even in death the Ebony Warrior defeated me. :/

Skyrim: A Criminal from Morrowind

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

In search of the Morrowind criminal, Bo and I headed to the foundling little hamlet of Little Vivec as suggested by Mandryn (who claimed to be following other leads but I suspect he was just drinking all the ale in that tavern). The new community was made up of Dunmer who had fled from the racism of Windhelm and they had a fair amount of courier work to hand out. None of them wanted to talk about the strange warrior who had come through a few days before.

I figured taking out some local bandits for the community might loosen their tongues but they were all dead when we arrived at their camp, apparently beaten to it by the mysterious stranger. Finally one of the dunmer admitted that this stranger was seeking some nearby dwemer ruins so Bo and I hoofed it over there and followed the trail of dead bodies and broken robots deep into the small facility.

A trio of riddles also blocked the path but they were easily solved once I worked out the cool mechanic. Basically the answer to each was an item, and so if the answer was "time" for example, I'd need to put a watch into a nearby box to unlock the door. Good design work there I thought. :) Finally we caught up to this mysterious warrior, and he asked for our help. I immediately said yes.

Brutus!?

Skyrim: Tusaron

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

Do your curved swords do 900+ damage? Didn't think so.

Adventuring with Brutus is fun, as he is almost as good as me when it comes to killing things! Dovahkiin and Nerevarine high five! We wandered around the roads for a bit, taking turns dueling the many wandering challengers and even had a dragon slaying competition!

Brutus: "Jump on the head because then it is at your mercy!"

Me: "Just like handling an alligator then?"

Our journeys led us to some vampire nest at the request of the Dawnguard, and while exterminating them was easy it turned out that their master - an ancient thalmor bloodsucker, was away - journeying to Castle Volkihar to meet his buddy Lord Harkon. We caught up with him just south of Helgen... the Vampire Dread Lord Tusaron. I knew right away that this was a danger unlike we had previously faced so I opened with my paralyzing arrows which knocked him down.

Not one to waste an opening, Brutus charged in and wailed on the undead thalmor for a bit... until he finally resisted my paralyzing shots. On his feet, Tusaron was a whirlwind of death - agile and unrelenting. In just a second after slicing Brutus into tiny Nerevarine pieces he was already almost upon me at my sniper spot. The Arbiter's Decree made the ancient vampire hesitate though, and that was all I needed to get a number of power attacks to finish off the fiend.

Lived up to his name.

After paying respects to my fallen companion I began the cold trek back to Fort Dawnguard.

Skyrim: Ur Dead

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

Iverelle had mentioned reports of a disturbing cave to the South so Brutus and I made our way there for recon and clearing, and encountered corpus walkers, skinned hounds, and cultists of the sixth house before encountering Dagoth Vanis - who basically acted as the mouth of Dagoth Ur, challenging us to enter his fortress here in Skyrim and face him in combat.

Brutus (backstabbing him): "I got tired of his talking."

With that invitation Brutus and I moved quickly to get to the dwemer ruin where we fought more of Dagoth's minions, now including Ash servants, who didn't really stand a chance against the two of us. Their traps were more dangerous.

Nice to see his choice of head gear hasn't changed much.

Finally in the bowels of that place awaited Dagoth Ur. After a nice chat, where he explains his plan of enacting vengeance upon the only one who can stop him (the reincarnated Nerevarine) we get down to the business/fighty end. Or we would have. The idiot was so focused on me he didn't realize that I wasn't the reincarnated Nerevarine. It was the guy beside me.

He got brutalized!

Brutus exploited his moment of indecision and brutalized the poor bastard. After claiming the loot, which rightfully went to Brutus, we made our way around the holds executing any and all dreamers left. The corpus meat found on their persons proves this is the righteous and lawful thing to do.

No more dreams for you!

Skyrim: Reincarnated

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

Azura imparted some really obscure information to me which I didn't fully understand, but she did say I was free to take Sunder and so I did. For a "legendary" weapon it didn't come close to any of my current equipment. Before leaving I did have to ask Azura one thing... "Is your kung fu stronger than my kung fu!?"  I'm pleased she was game enough to actually participate, unlike that cheater Sanguine.

She'll be alright.

After a decent sparring session, I said thank you by knocking her out with an uppercut and took my leave. Mellori finally came clean when I gave her the hammer, saying she was doing all of this to try forge a weapon capable of killing the person who slew her dad. Someone really bad. She refused to name drop though, and said she'd send us a note when she was ready, since all her previous attempts at forging whatever she was making didn't turn out right.

There was one really bad dude who came to mind though, so Brutus and I headed to Whiterun to see if we could learn more about him. I'm talking of Dagoth Ur of course, whose Dreamers are becoming more frequent in each town. At the tavern, a traveling dunmer named Iverelle Savidri confirms my suspicions and what the dreamers have been trying to preach: Dagoth Ur has fully revived from his defeat at Red Mountain, and is reforming the Sixth House cult here in Skyrim.

Coinciding with an eclipse eh...

It is up to the reincarnation of the Nerevarine to stop him...

And his lackeys!

Skyrim: Tomb of the Nerevarine

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

Mellori was happy with all the trinkets I've been retrieving for her, and the next one was a doozy: a little hammer called Sunder. Supposedly it was buried with the Nerevarine centuries ago, the hero of Morrowind who slew Dagoth Ur in the Red Mountain. It certainly wasn't me because a) I'm still alive and b) I didn't kill Dagoth Ur with a hammer. I just pushed him into a volcano (which was awesome btw :P).

Anyway, Brutus would have to stay behind again because he had to help clean up the town after being caught littering.

"But it doesn't fit in any of the bins..."

The ship to Morrowind was really fast. Pretty much instantaneous even. If I wasn't reading carefully I'd even think the Nerevarine's tomb was IN the ship. A small Imperial party was idling in the tomb when I got there. Apparently they all tried to take the hammer and were deemed unworthy - turning into Hollows (someone certainly watches Bleach) who forever were trapped in the tomb.

While not openly aggressive immediately, I obviously had a conflicting opinion with their captain and ... well. I set them free. Finally I reached the burial chamber myself and who do I find waiting there?

Azura, the Daedric Prince(ss) of Dusk and Dawn