Sacred: Shaddar

[Part of the Sacred Journey.]

With the demon essence trapped in the gem, we returned to Braverock castle and handed it over to the sorceress Shareefa for disposal. Only instead of being a buxom tanned woman she transformed into a pale thin whiny male necromancer with greasy hair: Shaddar! After doing his bad guy spiel about using the gem to attain god hood / more power he snapped his fingers and Prince Valor along with his guardsmen died and turned into zombies who we needed to destroy.

Shaddar then teleported away with a captured Vilya just for good measure. Fortunately a wise wizard who showed up out of nowhere was there to tell us to go rescue the baroness and stop the crazy bastard, otherwise we wouldn't know what to do! :P Getting back to Shaddar's tower was easy since there was that handy way gate right beside it that he forgot to close. This time the basement was set up for a ritual and we had to deal with the handful of Sakkara cultists Shaddar still had with him before facing the man himself.

I made everyone look like a fool!

To his credit, he was completely immune to my BFG (and possibly to all magic) but since my character was mostly specced for physical attacks and still had four knights backing her up he was in all sorts of trouble regardless. Upon his defeat we tossed him down the giant hole nearby and returned to Braverock triumphant. As for the demon gem thingy? I assume I kept it since it is never mentioned again.

Sacred: Sakkara

[Part of the Sacred Journey.]

The streets of the city were filled with fighting so it was pretty easy to get up to main castle itself (especially with eight NPCs behind me). Once there we confronted DeMordrey himself and to his credit he was one tough cookie, surviving many rounds of BFG-ing. He kept getting distracted by my companions though, which proved to be his undoing. Once dead, Prine Valor took his place on the throne with Vilya at his side but our job wasn't finished.

We needed to take Shareefa down to the ancestral forge where she could put the elements together and summon the lose Sakkara Demon for one final fight. The damn thing was three levels down and had a metric ton of undead in the way and while we did reach there in the end it did cost one party member, Glubba the ogre, his life.

With the elements forged into the "Heart of Ancaria" gem, Shareefa told us how to summon the demon and wished us luck as she was teleporting out to seal us in - you know, in case we lost. I really dislike that woman. Anyway, with no other choice we summoned forth the Sakkara demon (who looks a lot like a D&D Balor or Tolkien Balrog) and began a most difficult and epic fight, that is until I found its one weakness: It didn't know how to walk around a particular object in the room. Exploiting that, the demon was soon defeated with none of the remaining party getting killed.

That mortal knew my one weakness... pillars!

Sacred: The Fifth Element

[Part of the Sacred Journey.]

We teleported to the distant desert and right into large numbers of Sakkara with undead fighting orcs. Judging from the map we were still a ways off from the tower we wanted to get to so I immediately went for the sprint route, using combat jump on the higher cliff tops to avoid a lot of the fighting and to break through the paralysis tendrils when I could. There were sections where that wasn't an option (either no where to jump or it was on cool down), meaning that we had to fight with some being pretty close affairs. Feeling pretty good that I brought those four knights as backup!

Upon finally reaching the tower we found the friendly ogre Glubba, a previous servant of the idiot Shaddar, who asked us to take him home to the place of his birth. Only I knew just from the description that it was that village where everyone turned into zombies, so I decided to keep him with us. In the basement below there were some demons waiting to be cleared out, and just beyond them we finally found... the fifth element!

It was nowhere near this pretty though.

Using the conveniently nearby way gate it was back to Braverock where I found Shareefa again with Prince Valor who was still camped out three levels down in his enemies excrement. What the HELL has this loser been doing while I've been out playing fetch? Anywho, apparently now that I'm back with four extra knights and an ogre he feels confident in taking down DeMordrey at last, so he, Baroness Vilya and Shareefa join the party for an assault on the main castle itself.

Sacred: Mystdale

[Part of the Sacred Journey.]

Cave fish are big, slow moving ugly things that can easily be out walked in their natural state. However they have an attack where they leap like a heat seeking missile, leaving a trail of fire behind them, which always hits and always stuns. They were getting more and more plentiful as we progressed that it was becoming rather irritating to traverse the swamp. Fortunately, once we crossed the bridge to the lands of Mystdale the theme changed to that of undead and rogue mages (who of course have the paralysation spell, damnit).

Mystdale itself was home to non-hostile wizards, though they all came in different flavours with many types I've previously fought being present here. Most of the quests related to escaped experiments (collecting their brains), or slaying undead or dealing with accidentally summoned demons. Indeed, killing an ogre referee who accepted bribes to let teams win in the wizardry football league and assisting to stop a bunny plague were the off beat ones but most memorable of the area.

It would be cool if Gambit (X-men) was a referee. Exploding cards!

Once that was all done it was time to meet Shareefa at that castle itself to hand her those four elements that were a pain in the rear to collect. Her response is "you are late". I seriously want to slay this woman now, especially when she says we are missing the last element - the element of the Void and true to form she sends me to fetch it from the tower of the dufus from the intro who screwed up his summoning ritual. Fortunately there is a portal close to my destination in the woods nearby, and the Sakkara cultists and their undead cronies guarding it were easily dispatched with the four extra knights behind my back.

Sacred: Dam Fetch Quest

[Part of the Sacred Journey.]

Highmarsh was a relaxing enough diversion, seeing me deal with thieving gargoyles, collecting some weed (really), and allying with a friendly dark elf named Valaria  for a short time to kill some Sakkara cultists and their pet demon. I also wondered about the economy of such a place when I child can pay me five thousand gold coins for returning a smiley bunny to her. Unfortunately it was soon time for me to make my way back up the mountain and into the next set of drow infested mines, this one being far more annoying than the last in that it was intentionally made as a maze instead of a mine. It was very slow going until I reached the second floor where there were no drow units at all, instead there were just a variety of ghosts and the occasional, easily avoidable cave fish.

With nothing there that could paralyze me (cave fish being the exception but they were very few) I could sprint past all the foes and activate the dam lever to drain the water before ducking out via a convenient escape hatch. I still had to jump down the mountain again past more drow, but once I got into the water temple itself it was just a small two level dungeon the first being one small room with spiders and the second just having ghosts and cave fish again, most of which I avoided simply by jumping to the elemental receptacle (and back) gaining the element of water.

With all the elements now in my possession it was time to head towards Mystdale Castle, where Shareefa said she would be waiting for me. You'd have thought she might at least get some of the elements herself but noooooo. On the road there I found the miserable swamp village of Gloomoor which had a nasty spider infestation (which no one seemed to mind). I did help out as much as I could though, by collecting spider venom sacs, rescuing trapped lumberjacks, and destroying a lich in a nearby dungeon. That last task was crazy with the amount of undead scum present, the type you needed to slay three times if you didn't have the "undeath death" potion, and there were simply too many of them and not enough potions so it became a mad dash to slay the lich and escape. The BFG was made good use of here, but even it couldn't clear out all of the horde. I just killed the leader and escaped, that's enough of a win for me.

Sacred: Heavy Reading

[Part of the Sacred Journey.]

Since I already had a way gate marked at Ice Creek Pass we just appear right there, right next to where Wilbur died, and proceed up the mountain past the local hill giants, frost goblins, ice wolves and ice drakes of ever increasing size. This is actually easy since they cannot catch Speedy. Upon reaching the library though, we find that it is under seige from Ice Giants. Only one Seraphim and a handful of novices survived by escaping via the front door.

Ofcourse what we needed was inside the place (no horse), and with goblin shamans having the paralyze spell it meant a lot of close quarters combat against the big blue guys. Fortunately they were nowhere near as tough as the ice elf jedis from the forest and Shareefa herself was a pretty handy ally with many destructive spells launching from her fingertips. Soon we found what we were looking for... a seraphim hologram who gave us some really obscure message about elements.

Shareefa understood this to mean that we needed to acquire each element and put them together to defeat the Sakkara demon and then promptly told me to go get them on my own before teleporting herself out of there (The bitch!). Not sure why I couldn't just pick up some dirt, then spit, fart and light it on fire with magic but I guess that would be too easy. Fortunately the "air" element was nearby - just higher up the mountain in the ice giant home. Thanks to Speedy I was in and out of there before they even knew it, and was one step closer to creating the thing that would destroy the demon once and for all.

Captain Planet!

Sacred: Cowardice

[Part of the Sacred Journey.]

While doing quests at Braverock I learned of a rebel movement that was supposedly opposing Baron DeMordrey from within the city. I figured if I tracked down this "movement" I'd find Prince Valor and his retinue who I am supposed to deliver this big demon horn to. I am slightly surprised to learn that the Prince is currently hiding in the sewers underneath the city and is obviously the one instigating the rebellion against the traitor DeMordrey (and his numerically superior troops).

Underneath THREE LEVELS of sewer and sewerage to be precise. Just to recap: This supposedly brave guy called "Prince Valor" who is the next rightful ruler of the land is hiding under three levels of his enemies' urine and feces. Not sure if that's a fate worse than death right there but whatever. It seems he and his cohorts enjoy pulling the strings to get his own kinsmen to fight among each other while he hides unseen in the smelly safety of their poo. Is this really the guy meant to be king?

I don't think even he knows for sure.

Anyway, I showed the Prince, Baroness Vilya and Shareefa the demon horn. The sorceress instantly knew it was that of a Sakkara Demon - one of the most powerful beings from the underworld. It can also raise and control the dead and is the reason the orcs are fleeing from the sands. The Prince being the true coward he is, sends Shareefa and myself to handle that problem while he takes care of the rebel movement from the safety of his cave. Shareefa suggests we visit the Seraphim library at Ice Creek Dale to learn how to fight this monster. I agree just to get away from the poorly named loser that is Prince Valor.

Sacred: The Dark Side

[Part of the Sacred Journey.]

Before accepting Shareefa's quest to talk to some orcs I decided to first assist some of the surviving soldiers with retrieving a missing pet wolf and retrieving a bow from a magic bear dungeon (don't ask). I also chose to help the local elf rangers with an ice elf problem they were having in this region. Sure, there were some demons and blood thirsty giant bears running lose but the ice elves were the issue and that is no joke because when I ran into the first group I got OWNED. This is because all the ice elves come in large groups and all of them wield FRIGGING LIGHT SABERS!

This is not the game you are looking for!

My task was simple, I just had to remove three of their priestesses from the forest but they were guarded by huge clusters of these evil jedi/Sith. This was the first time I had to use the BFG on groups but it was close to the only way I could get past to my targets. The last one had a PAIR of ice dragons defending her too, which made it all that much harder to get to her. Eventually I did though, and boy did I make her pay for being so annoying to get to.

Deep in the woods I also located another friendly orc village but these ones weren't very talkative, just scared because they were low on warriors, new to the region as refugees, and have all these Sith lurking about the woods nearby. Having had enough Star Wars for now I returned to Prince Valor's encampment and accepted Shareefa's envoy task. The orcs she wanted me to question were the ones in Khorad-Nur who were already friendly to me. She even opened a gate for me for fast travel there but I opted not to take it she did so indoors which meant Speedy (the horse) wouldn't be able to accompany me.

Instead I just rode back to Mascarell (past the still warring factions on the street) to use the way gate back to the orc city and had a quick chat to their local shaman who gave me a rather large demon horn. Apparently something big and fiery is on the loose in the south. Something that's raising all the dead.

Sacred: A Speedy Reunion

[Part of the Sacred Journey.]

In under five minutes I was at the gateway to Wyvern's Pass thanks to my swift horse which I've decided to name Speedy, and after dealing with the few DeMordreyan douchebags blocking the way I found myself riding through a bustling war zone of undead versus orcs and goblins. This was a similar case in the desert region near Khorad-Nur but the numbers here were quite scary. Much more so if I had to run through this on foot!

In the distant south I finally found what looked like the last stand of Prince Valor's troops, and after getting some water for a dying soldier (I literally had to kill fifty enemies to do this) he decided to let me know the Prince was actually still alive, and that I should head to Mascarell to protect his girlfriend the Baroness Vilya. Not a problem with Speedy.

Is that you Custer?

In no time at all I'm back at Mascarell which so happens to be under siege by DeMordreyan troops just at that moment. For the most part I ignore them and pick up Vilya at her mansion. She knows the Prince is ok, and that we are to rendevouz with him at some nearby elf lodge in the forest. With her changed into her archer attire we proceed through the combat filled streets and eventually fight our way out with the help of some Mascarellian troops and then race through the bandit and drow forest to Valor's encampment where the Prince and Vilya are happily reunited. I leave them to their own devices as I talk to the sorceress Shareefa who openly ponders why the orcs are coming out of the desert. It's like they are running from something.