Dragon's Dogma: The Demon of Indecision

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

I don't suppose you just want to talk?

The city is home to more of those really tough evil mercs, as well as flying strigoi who are fricking tough and have an unbreakable grab attack which depends on a team mate freeing you. Lily almost fell prey to this. The main attraction though was the large demon residing in the grand hall at the end. As the end boss of Bitterblack Isle he has a whole slew of abilities, the scariest of which is one where he banishes people - as he does to Yennefer!

Fortunately we find a new knight ally in the form of Ingvald who is pretty decent as a second tank, but what really kills the demon are a pair of rusty daggers I found, not because of the piss poor damage but because of the slowing debilitation with each strike that connects and as one can imagine, dual wielding daggers usually ends up with a lot of strikes - eventually making the demon move in slow motion. It's pretty epic when we finally slay him.

Turns out he was once Olra's main squeeze, and an arisen to boot - until the dragon offered him a choice which he couldn't decide upon. His uncertainty eventually turned him into a demon, and Olra is pleased that he is now free from his suffering. This doesn't clear the island of monsters though, on the contrary - without the demon around they seem to all have gotten tougher!? Not that it's my problem though - with my task here done we warp back to Gran Soren. I'm now on level 57.

Dragon's Dogma: A Tale of Women

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

With my Port Crystals in place Captain Mercedes joins the team for a brief night patrol of the Shadow Fort, and of course we run into huge trouble in the pitch black forest. An army of goblins assaults us from all directions, combined with a drake from the air. I do my best to keep the goblins off her but she is downed by dragon fire and needs to be returned for medical attention after the combat.

Fortunately our next escort mission, to take the tavern keeper Inez on a short adventure is far more successful since she doesn't opt to go far, or to a very dangerous place. Once she is back to safety I am feeling pretty confident with the strength of the team so we return to Bitterblack Isle and we make our way back to the Bich and his undead dragon. This time Rose is using the same crazy spells it throws at us, Yennefer is whipping it with lightning, and Lily is tanking better since I'm silencing and poisoning the Bich with specially prepared arrows.

That's one p0wn3d bich.

Victory comes at last, and opens another shortcut back to Olra and another route further down which we follow into a flooded keep with stronger phantoms and problematic giant saurians who we need to sprint past, right into really tough evil mercs!? I have to abuse their leash mechanism to kill them. We have another encounter with Death in a sewer but once more outrun the giant spirit. We do have to fight a tough living armor afterwards and destroying that opens a door leading to an ancient city which feels so familiar for some reason.

Dragon's Dogma: Placing Ports

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

Near the Greatwall is a mini dungeon called Soulflayer Canyon which serves as a "not so shortcut" back across the map and is home to lots of ugly critters. While traversing it, Barnaby is once again put to sleep by snow harpies and this time since they also manage to ice me and have the rest of the team dealing with goblins one of them picks up the sleeping fool and spirits him away. Presumably to make baby harpies, followed by Barnaby steak. We never see him again.

Easiest cyclops kill in here!

We then journey far past a windy valley that doubles as a bandit camp and encounter our first golem! Again, good idea for this creature - powered by magic immune disks that serve as its weak spots. You can't pick and choose though, you need to get them all - and with one in the palm of its hand and another in the base of a foot it proves to be a good challenge. Eventually we reach the crumbling Bluemoon Tower we had seen all the way from the other end of the bay at Cassardis. I love the draw distance in this game.

If you are wondering why the heck I'm going to these places it's simply to place Port Crystals (as I mentioned to Coppertopper in the comments previously) so that I can just warp back to them later. It's certainly pretty handy for the cascade of hunting quests I've been assigned. Everything from rats to Death. Yes, there is a quest to kill Death and while I know where to find him I don't see how the heck I'm meant to do that one.

Dragon's Dogma: Safe as China

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

Back in the city we recruit the sorceress Yennefer (taking a break from adventuring with Geralt I guess?) who has an awesome lightning whip spell and are also joined by the Pawn Guild manager Barnaby on our next outing since he wants to take a more active role in ending the dragon threat. Too bad he is an idiot as demonstrated on our first outing to the Northern hill where harpies manage to keep putting him to sleep with their singing.

We save him from that and from many the big white dire wolves in the region, managing to meet an old guy called the Dragonforged who supposedly once faced the dragon too. He's not very forthcoming with information at this point but does give me some cool stuff to help in my quest. We also explore the dead woods where Sara died previously and take out a few chimeras. At the very center of it is an Abbey of nuns, because apparently that's a "safe" place? Lol.

Tell that to all the prowling chimeras!

We continue up the mountain, fighting past a clan of female bandits who become less hostile as we get closer to their mountain top fort. Once there they let us pass with no hassle into a dark marsh inhabited by a lich. He is no match for the team, but is also not as strong as the Bich on Bitterblack Isle. Eventually we reach China - because we reach a massive fortress called the Great Wall, which also is keeping monsters at bay. I wonder if Matt Damon is around?

Dragon's Dogma: No Salvation

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

Upon returning the slates to Ser Maximillian, he gives us our next assignment of infiltrating attacking a Cult of the Dragon Salvation meeting taking place in the not so nearby catacombs and A peasant chubby lady named Sara volunteers to guide us there. Right outside the city gate there is a brief encounter where the city guards are trying to save a merchant wagon from goblins which should have been an easy fight, until a griffon comes along and wrecks everyone. Only my team, including the peasant lady, survives as the Griffon takes the dead Ox and flies off mid combat.

I'm curious why these are nocturnal.

Our journey then takes us through a creepy forest, and since night falls as we traverse it we are beset by numerous undead, including the fat "boomer" type that self explodes. One such creature explodes Sara into many directions. Fortunately Lily knows the way too, so we get to the catacombs and fight through even more of the walking dead to the second level where a surprise ogre manages to kill Monterrey by suiciding into a bottomless chasm, with her attached.

Soon after we find the Salvation meeting point and witness that Ser Julien is here, but he runs off as soon as our presence is made known. The ugly leader guy then kills all the gathered members and reanimates them into zombies to fight us, which is really dumb as from experience they are all much weaker than the generic bandits. Alas the ugly leader escapes but at least we open up a shortcut much nearer to Gran Soren for our return trip.

Dragon's Dogma: Settlements

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

After getting Bich slapped last time, we return to Cassardis where the local chief Adaro joins us to settle a few matters including catching a local thief which is easy, helping Valmiro - a wannabe adventurer who is also a moron, followed by taking out a Saurian nest in the well. I suppose if Valmiro's been drinking lizard pee all this time it might explain his behavior. Anyway, after clearing them out it's off to a bandit fortress to retrieve another slate for the Wyrm hunt investigation.

Adaro is killed by a sniper on the approach, so we reciprocate by murderizing the entire place and looting everything we can. We then take a quick detour to the Shadow Fort which is failing in doing its job of "keeping goblins and other monsters out" since it has fallen to those very same goblins. Fortunately they and their cyclops buddies are no match for the team now, and we force them to flee back into the tunnels they dug under the fort.

Siege weapons are fun!

A quick warp back to Gran Soren (which I'm glad they included because walking is nice, but time consuming) and I am asked by the local bald rich bastard named Fournival for aid in evicting a family who cannot pay the rent in one of his properties. I manage to convince the wife and the boy Pip, by simply out parkouring him - but the husband Jasper is a resilient S.O.B. Lily suggests that we simply purchase the house for them outright which would leave us 80k out of pocket but since I've got millions of gold at this stage I figure why not, just to get another quest out of the way. Needless to say, all parties are happy with the result.

Dragon's Dogma: The Bich

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

Since the altar is closer to Cassardis, I decide to trek back there and recruit the towering Nord gal Juliana and take the team back to Bitterblack Isle with Olra's help. We are much stronger this time around so I decide to take on that Cockatrice we ran past previously. Keeping with good D&D, the damn bird has a petrifying breath and Rose and Juliana are stoned midfight just as a huge black boss wolf shows up out of nowhere, because that's a thing here. Randomly spawning bosses.

I manage to cure Rose in time but Juliana is shattered by the big bad wolf before both beasts are laid low. Despite her loss we press on and recruit another ranger deeper in named Monterrey before taking on the giant beholder that stopped us before. Not so this time as we have enough ranged attacks and raw power (from Lily) to take it out. This opens a shortcut back to the surface (ala Dark Souls) and a path deeper into an underground fort with undead.

What made it challenging is our good buddy Death showed up again, meaning the team had to sprint through all the scum to avoid his one hit kill scythe, right into elder ogres and a tough minotaur type thing. Fortunately the spirit vanished at that point and let us handle these tough fights properly. There's also an undead dragon we have to run past later but it doesn't matter since it catches up to us at the next boss fight with its partner, the Lich Bishop - or Bich for short.

This is probably not going to end well...

This floating Bich proves to be way too tough as he summons tornadoes and other BS magics on top of being able to resurrect the dragon at will so once again we have to warp out of there, promising Olra will get that Bich next time.