Battle Brothers: Graveless Dead

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

Fortunately with the truce, traveling through House Grimmund's lands isn't bad - while the towns increase their prices due to the Spears involvement in the noble war, at least their soldiers are also more keen on fighting the undead than holding grudges.

On the march the company avoids wandering groups of undead and nachzerers until they start climbing the higher mountains of the North. There they meet Alfgeir the crusader who asks to join them in their virtuous quest - Gander readily agrees. Not much farther they find the ruined site of the artifact, guarded by a large force of skeletons.

Those backline pike skeletons are dangerous!

With long axes at the ready, the front line shield wall serves as a distraction while the heavy weapons flank the more dangerous spear men. This works well, until the shield wall breaks and everything goes to hell as people forget how to fight. Raz and Gillian are downed. Craizee is killed, reanimates and backstabs Alfgeir, slaying the crusader. With morale teetering on the brink, Gander orders a retreat - abandoning his fallen allies.

They would be the first four (of the currently thirty two losses) he could not dig graves for since joining the Spears of the Church.

Battle Brothers: Senior Sergeant

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

The remaining Spears from the siege use their pay first at the tavern, naming Sergeant Gander as the new commander since he's now the most senior (experience wise) in the company. Still reeling from the losses at Wiesendorf, he decides to take the company dire wolf hunting first, an easy job - followed by ousting some goblins at nearby ruins.

He doesn't look pleased at his promotion.

Carelessness leads to Fanatic being flanked at taking an arrow through the jugular, so after the victory Gander follows Sahkarov's advice in recruiting more men, gaining Raz the cat like sell sword and Harlech the incestuous bastard (not making that up).

The local councilman then pleads with the Spears to recover an artifact from the North Eastern mountains which might help in the war against the dead. With Majorn's reasoning still in his mind, Gander accepts and the company begins the long trek into House Grimmund territory.

TESO: What is dead may never die

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

It turns out I was beaten to the very item I was sent to fetch by the Queen's own Vice Reeve who reveals himself as part of the Veiled Heritance who are present in large numbers here, as well as their sea elf allies the Maromer. Nearby orc clans also cause trouble for the locals but they are just road kill on my chase for the Vice Reeve whom I finally catch up to in an ocean confrontation thanks to a tip from Hermaeus Mora (seriously, don't steal from a Daedric Prince).

As for the Vice Reeve: I sunk his battleship.

The second half is more interesting, as the evil Prince Naemon who I had already killed last time had been revived as a lich by the late Vice Reeve, and is attempting to bring this part of the forest into the shadow realm. Slaying his undead minions, shades and ultimately the Prince himself (again) is quite fun as warping between the two states changes the spawn on the map. Doesn't matter so much for people who just kill everything but for a sneak like me I quite appreciated it.

Raz and Mai'q get honorable mentions for being my travelling "companions" in the zone since they keep showing up unexpectedly. Also on my journey I do ponder why some skeletons hold torches. Does it let them see better? Anyway it's then on to Malabal Tor which is under attack by... Redguards?

TESO: Elf Nazis

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

It is with good fortune that we arrive at the Khajiit isle of Khenarthi's Roost right after an unnatural hurricane destroyed most of the Dominion ships in the harbor. While helping out the survivors it is made clear that the local Sea Elf pirates are behind the magical storm and thus forfeit their residency when a Dominion envoy arrives. The pirates continue to be a nuisance on the larger isle of Auridon, which is my next stop where I am surprised to already run into Queen Ayrenn while saving her from an assassination attempt and am recruited as one of her spies.

Those magic storms are cool though!

With the help of a most humorous khajit named Raz, we protect the newly crowned Queen and her retinue as they tour the island from the Veiled Heritance, who are basically High Elf Nazis. It's strange that there are worse elves than Thalmor huh? Most of the Veils turn out to be turncoats from Ayrenn's own court with their "Veiled Queen" being Ayrenn's demonized sister in law, who coincidentally worships Mehrunes Dagon and allies with Mannimarco too. After most violently dealing with the Nazis and their dremora I feel optimistic about the Queen's outlook for the peace truce.

Worth noting that the side-quests here strangely are all heavily focused on "mages who screwed up". One who petrified a town to cover up his experiments, one who feeds people to his vampire son, and so on and so forth. Trust the Altmer to try fix what ain't broken.