Soon after I entered the area of the titan stronghold, the Wayfarer approached me again. This time, he wants me to burn the papers I was ordered to recover for Avadon. These are papers that would provide information about who is behind all of the attacks lately, so this is basically the moment I choose between Avadon and someone unknown. I’m not sure what to do yet, but I’ll have to decide soon. I explored the immediate area and then went to meet up with the unit I’m supposed to lead.

The Titan Stronghold was a huge dungeon.

They were to the south, and they seemed ready, so we started our approach. It wen’t pretty smoothly, with no casualties, and I had plenty of time to explore side passages, killing another arrogant drake in the process. In fact, we even managed to free a few prisoners, who immediately joined the group. It was only at the final battle that one of the warriors died from poisoning. Once the keep was clear, the military unit left and I was ready to investigate the lower levels.

The first thing I saw as I descended was a huge titan holding a twisted iron sword, standing behind a closed gate. It was Chanakk, their chieftain. Again, he was speaking like he’s following someone’s orders, and again he wouldn’t face me immediately. Instead, he sent out another, massive titan against me. He fell without much of a fight. The chieftain was persistent in trying to keep me away, but eventually I caught up with him. I tried to get some information, offered him life in captivity, but I got nowhere. He died after a lengthy fight. The papers I was supposed to bring back or burn were in his private quarters. After some thinking, I burned them. Now we wait and see.

I reported back to the dragon and he was grateful, but his anger didn’t go away. If the Pact fails one more time, his dealings with it will come to an end. All I could do was to return to Avadon. Another message was waiting for me as I got back. This time, it was from Nathalie. She wen’t to Beraza Woods in Holklandia on a personal task. She actually wants to hunt down the drake that escaped us on her own. Of course, I have to go back after her.

I reported to Heart Miranda. She was surprised by the lack of evidence I burned, but it seemed I was in the clear for now. She sent me to talk to Redbeard about my next mission. Lord Gryfyn asked for me personally to return to Holklandia and help further with the peace talks. I guess Holklandia will be my next stop in any case.

When I arrived to Kva, I decided to do some catching up first. I got some minor info around town and it turns out the dragon has issues again, but with actual titans this time. He even got wounded, so he needs my help more than ever. While I was running around, I also did some quick side quests, which got me experience and money, but nothing of note other than that. My companion has left me a note saying he will be looking for his attackers in the White Plains, but before I went there, I had to go and speak to the dragon. He explained how he was attacked and injured and requested my group to lead an army of Avadon to destroy the titans in their stronghold to the south.

Before I went to the White Plains to find my companion, the staff working for the dragon asked me to “evict” some unwelcome residents of the lower caves. Among the many I had to “send away” was a drake who deluded itself into thinking he is the dragon’s equal partner. White Plains it is.

Lots and lots of cacti in the White Plains. And lizards, lizards to. Oh, and brigands, being bad and ambushing people, forgetting cacti have thorns. Some wolves to. Basically, there’s plenty of stuff in the White Plains. Pretty soon I’ve found a small settlement in the south, Called Debptbound Colony, so I decided to ask around there. One of the people there told me what the place was. In her words, holes like this one serve to house people that have far to much debt to pay back. It’s either that, or slavery, according to the Code. In one of the other huts, I’ve found Sevilin. That’s his name! Sevilin!

Outside of Avadon, people tend to live in group housing.

Sevilin tracked Cahil, the brigand who ambushed his party, to this place. He is back with me now, and we will hunt the bastard together. After much “diplomacy”, I’ve finally convinced one of the people living there to tell us where we can find Cahil, or “The Claw” as they call him. I’ve filled up as much of the map as I can and then went after him. We found him pretty soon to, but not before we had to dispose of a reanimated titan. After a brief conversation and the realization who it is that was hunting him, Cahil started babbling about something “we can’t know” and then slipped away from us through a trap door. We went after him, of course.

After traversing a maze of trap doors and hallways, we’ve finally cornered him in his lair, but then he slapped his final card on the desk. A letter of pardon from Redbeard himself. The Claw gave information to Avadon and, in spite of killing several hands and committing other horrible crimes, he was allowed to walk. I chose to ignore it. If Avadon has no honor, then I will not serve it blindly. His archers fell in moments, and he followed shortly after.

I have no idea what this means, but I’m sure it will affect the events to follow. For now, I have a mission for Avadon to do.

My mission is to go back to khemeria to find and kill the wizard responsible for the shadow beast. Of course, it was obvious to me from the last time I was there that Moritz’Kri, the adviser to lord Carsta’Arl was the culprit, but I didn’t have any proof. This time, I knew for sure that a wizard was involved, so I confronted the lord immediately. After realizing there is no way to get out of it, be turned over Moritz’Kri. That is, he allowed me to arrest him, but didn’t want to get involved directly. The wizard attacked me and I managed to defeat him, but he teleported away before I could deliver the final blow. I ended up chasing him all over Oghrym’Tor and finally cornered him in the cellars of his castle wing, but again, he managed to teleport to safety, this time to his tower in Dorla Woods.

On my way there, I was forced to kill the patrol that was assigned to guard his tower. It was obvious they didn’t want to fight, but they were more scared of him than of me. After lots and lots of fighting throughout his tower, I finally found him trying to summon a demon lord – Beloch, the Scourge. The ritual was almost complete, and the demon was almost loose, but for the final part, Moritz’Kri needed a human sacrifice. Foolishly, he tried to use me for that, and this cost him greatly. I defeated him one last time and the demon took him back to his realm. Of course, the demon is pretty much loose now, with only a faint power binding him to the portal and it’s only a matter of time before he’s completely free. Still, he was way to powerful for me to defeat him at that point, so I was forced to retreat. In any case, my mission was over.

On a side note, I encountered the Wayfarer again, but this time he didn’t have any suspicious task for me. He only warned me that this incident will be the beginning of the end for Dhorl Stead. Once the eye of Avadon focuses on something, it rarely looks away before it’s destroyed.

I returned back to Avadon only to find out that my warrior, whose name escapes me again is gone. The ambush that earned him his scar was tormenting him far to much and he decided to go to the White Plains of Kva, find his attacker and deal with him. After talking to my superiors, I realized my next mission is also taking me to Kva, so I guess it’s two for one this time. Kva it is!

So, last time I wrote, I was about to start my mission at castle Vebeaux. The Duke asked me to escort a team of soldiers from both Holklandia and Kellemderiel while they destroy a source of monster infestation in the nearby Beraza Woods. He is hoping that this would bolster the relations between the two regions and ensure a peace agreement.

I had to go here several times during my missions.

I explored the outer part of the woods and completed a few side missions, while at the same time clearing the woods of monsters. I also encountered the suspicious rogue who keeps following me and offering me shifty jobs. This time, he actually offered me something I was willing to do. It seems that the administrator ofcastle Vebeaux is not allowing a merchant safe passage, because he is being bribed by the competition. I talked to the administrator, put some fear into him and this was promptly resolved. The military unit I was supposed to escort was in the second region of the woods. As soon as I got there, I knew it wouldn’t go well. The soldiers simply did not get along and were letting their differences get between them. I tried to calm the situation, but it wasn’t working. When we got to caverns where the troubles were coming from, the commander from Holklandia decided to stay and guard it, while the rest of us got in and cleared it. He simply wasn’t willing to put his life in the hands of the enemy.

I descended with the Kellemderiel soldiers and we soon split up, according to their wishes. They took the direct route, while I was forced to take the longer way around. After some fighting and spelunking, I finally met them again, but it was too late. The source of the monsters was a dragon, this time a master of mind spells and he already got to them. He completely wiped their minds, turning them into slaves that attacked me. I managed to defeat them, but the dragon got away, so I returned to the surface. While he did get away, the source of the infestation was removed for now, so my mission was over. I got back to the castle to report in, and then returned to Avadon.

My next mission is taking me back to Khmeria. I am to find the person responsible for creating the shadow beast and kill him. I should probably also mention that one of the side missions in castle Vebeaux had me expose a spy for the Tavon empire. I’m not sure if this will be important later, but it seemed that it might. One other thing – the caverns and the laboratory where the dragon lived used to belong to a mage named Adranos. This also sounded like important information.

The next mission that Redbeard sent me on was supposed to take me to Kellemderiel, to castle Verbeaux. Gryfyn, the local duke is working hard and forging a peace agreement with the neighboring region of Holklanda, and in order to do this, he needs help with a task. However, before I did all that, I had to take care of Jennel’s problems. When we last went to Khemeria, we encountered a group of Wyldrylm warriors who escaped their lands because of a crime they committed. The crime was justified in a way, and not really a bad thing, but the Pact laws have been broken and they would have been hunted down if they didn’t escape. Jennel decided to go and try to warn them that Avadon now knows where they are and left me a note about it, so I went after her.

The Five Nations of the Midlands Pact

A runner in Dhorl Stead told me where she was, but when I got there, I was attacked by Wyldrylm warriors several times before I could even tell them I come in peace. I finally found a small encampment in the woods, where another group of warriors, this time friendly and led by a guy named Vid was keeping Jennel safe. Jennel told me what happened. The group was led by a shaman named Theresia, who got quite arrogant and angry at Avadon. When Jennel came with the warning, Theresia tried to kill her, but Vid and his men managed to free her and hide in this part of the woods. The other people I killed where just about to assault their encampment.

With Jennel back in my group, I went after Theresia and soon found her encampment. I let her men go, but was forced to kill her. For a moment, it seemed like she would see reason, but in the end she attacked anyway so my hand was forced on the matter. After all of this, I went back to Avadon to take care of some other business and then continued to Kellemderiel for my mission. I met the duke and he explained my mission to me. I am to go with a group of Holklandan soldiers and locate and destroy a source of magically altered monsters who are infesting a local forested area.

As I said, I had to go to Kva again, because the dragon has new issues. Both his lair and the local town are being attacked, by ogres this time. In fact, I helped him fight off an attack while I was there. He said he did some aerial scouting and found the source of the ogres to be somewhere in Jhereth Deeps, an old mining abandoned mining complex. Coincidentally, the captain of the guard unit assigned to him has lost another scouting party in that area.

FIghting this dragon was a bad idea.

I went there, explored it fully, saved the scouting party and found the source of the ogres. A new dragon has moved into the area. this time one that has a frost alignment. From what I can tell, it’s a female, but I’m not certain. After I told it of the ogre issue, it got mad, claiming the ogres acted outside of her knowledge and pointed me in the direction of their lair. I went there, killed the titan that was leading them and met a person named Merula. She was a mage who was giving orders to the titan. She claimed her intentions are not all bad, and that the aim of the people she’s working for was to change things in the Pact and possibly overthrow Redbeard. She asked me to think about all of that and I promised I will. I also offered her a chance to flee, but she wouldn’t take it, so I was forced to kill her.

After all that, I cleared out some of the side quests in the area and returned to Avadon. Soon after I got there, I got a message from my shaman, saying she had to leave on a personal errand. I also got my next mission, this time from Redbeard personally.

As I said, my new mission took me to Khemeria, which is a Farland nation, not part of the Pact. Suffice to say, I was not well received. The surprising thing is, it wasn’t hostility that I encountered, but fear. It seems the Pact isn’t as nice as I’d like to think. I explored Dhorl Stead, which is a settlement built near the portal, and tried gathering some information, but no one would talk to me, saying to go and see their leader. The problem is, when I got to the keep of Oghrym’Tor, where the leader resides, I was not allowed entry.

Spiderweb games usually have rich writing. The game over screen shows Avadon is no exception.

His wizard, whose name escapes me right now (as usual), but starts with M said that he was in charge of talking to me and that the leader couldn’t leave the keep due to some disease epidemic. Of course, this was all very suspicious, but I couldn’t do anything about it, so I went back to town. Luckily, I finally got some good info from a clanless runner that lives on the edge of the village. He told me the beast most often roams around Dorla Woods, so that was where I went next.

I met a shaman in the woods who left the city due to a disagreement with the wizard. She seemed to have shared my mistrust towards him. On a side note, her back room was trapped, so being the explorer that I am, I tried to trigger the trap to see what happens and saw my first game over screen. Other than the trap, the room also contains an Incubus (male version of the Succubus) and a bed, so I’m thinking the shaman has some dirty secrets.

I went deeper into the woods and finally found a ruined village. Everyone other than a single villager fled this village, chased away by the beast. The one remaining person told me there was another settlement over the river, which had it even worse. This led me to believe that the beast’s lair might be near that other settlement. On my way there, I encountered and fought the beast several times, but it would always run away once any real damage was dealt to it. I also encountered a woman called Liese, living in a lone hut. She claims to have trained a lot of soldiers, so I asked her to train me, but she said I have to prove myself somehow first.

I finally reached the other village and found the beast’s lair underneath. After a long battle, I finally defeated it,but then it started acting strangely, like it was trying to talk to me. I only understood a few words – “no hurt”, so I decided to spare it and take it to Avadon for examination. Since the lair was an old wizards laboratory, I had good reasons to believe the beast was artificially made. Before I could do this, though, the wizard from Oghrym’Tor arrived and finished it. He gave me some half-assed explanation as to why he did it and left. In any case, my mission was over and I returned to Avadon.

I reported my success to the Heart and also mentioned all the suspicious behavior I experienced. She said she would look into it and assigned me to my next mission. The dragon in Kva has issues again, this time with ogres, who are also attacking the village. This is where I will be going next.

Well, some stuff definitely happened since yesterday. I met the dragon, but I had to clear his lair from an invasion of wretches first.It took a while to find and kill all of them, but it was in no way hard. That reminds me, I increased the difficulty level from normal to the next one up (can’t remember what it’s called), but the game is still pretty easy. Only boss battles seem to provide a challenge.

I talked to the dragon and found out that the wretches were a bigger issue than I realized. A large group of them, led by an ogre commander has moved in to some caves to the south and they keep raiding his lair. The soldiers Avadon has assigned for protection simply can’t handle it. I decided to help him with his problem and also promised the local guard captain to look for a lost patrol.

Portals are usually in secluded areas such as this one.

I went south and met the patrol almost instantly, but they were a man short. One of the soldiers got captured by the wretches and is held in the dungeons now. The front gate to their caves was to well guarded so I had to find a back entrance which led to the lower levels. It’s there that I met the ogre leader, but it didn’t go as expected. The leader tried to avoid conflict, saying he was promised by someone who’s giving him orders that there will be no danger from Avadon. Now that he learned this isn’t true, he wishes to gather the wretches loyal to him and leave. Since my mission was only to deal with the problem, and the details of how to do it were up to me, I decided to let him go. Still, there was plenty of other wretches not under his control, so I still had some killing to do.

Pretty soon, I’ve found the captured scout and took him with me. He could hold his own, so we traveled in a group of four now. After fighting my way through a pit of wolves and killing a sonic bat, I finally found a way up from the lower levels. I killed a few commanders on the way, opened the front gate and killed the guards, and then found the throne room with the ogre in it. I just stumbled into him talking with a shadowy figure, which wasn’t to happy with the ogre’s attempt to flee. Under a threat of death, the ogre was forced to fight me while the mysterious figure fled. I promptly killed him, returned the scout to his unit and went back to see the dragon. He was fine now, so my main mission for Avadon was done and I was ready to return.

I got my next mission now. I have to go to another province, this time one that isn’t part of the Pact and is located in the Farlands and deal with a monster killing the local populace. I rechecked my gear, bought some new stuff and got rid of my junk, and then I stepped through another portal, which took me to a new land. This is where I stopped. One other thing I should mention is that I can take the other two companions with me now, but I decided to stick to the sorceress and warrior.

I played some more last night and will be off to play right now, so here’s just a quick update.

First of all, the alliance of nations is actually called “The Midlands Pact” or just “The Pact” for short. What I forgot to mention yesterday was that you also get companions in the game, four total, of which you can take two with you on missions at a time. On the first mission, I could only take one of two, but I’ve already met the other two in the fortress, though I have yet to recruit them.

Area transitions occur on visible zones.

My second mission took me to the land of Kva, which is one of the nations in the pack. I was to go to the town of Goldcrag, where I had to do a task for Zhethron, one of the dragons that still live in the world. I went there, explored the town and gathered plenty of information. Then I went to explore the general area and solve a few side quests on the way. Everything optional is explored and cleared now, so I will be going to meet the dragon next. Actually, there is one other optional quest I haven’t solved, but based on the description; it’s in an area I’m not supposed to visit yet, so I will deal with that later. My party is about level 4 now. I decided to build my main character as an offensive mage, and leave the healing and support to my companion sorceress, Nathalie. Note that the names might be slightly wrong, since I suck at remembering them.