Remember when Mason asked us to shadow Salvation’s spy as he left the castle? Well, I was near the gate at night when a cut scene took over. I pursued the quest, following a manly man in a blue cape.
I hate following someone in a game.
He did pause and look back. Hah — missed me. I did not have to start all the way back at the beginning of the trail. Eventually he knocks at the door of an abandoned house and we peep through the window.
It’s a shop owned by Madeleine. She seems to be passing him a scrap of paper, although it ends up in her cleavage for a moment. He rebuffs her overt advances, leaves, and the sneaking is over. I report my finding to Mason’s agent — A Knight is the spy — and that’s it for now.
We were given a mysterious slate to decipher for the Wyrm Hunt. I run around town looking for clues, but it’s not clear who I need to meet.
So I cheat.
I know where I need to go ultimately. Not too far north is a hillside with a large rock formation. I just jump to the end and go there. As we walk up, the game goes to a cut scene.
The “my heart has been ripped out” chest scar is a clue.
This guy and his weird young doppelgänger greet me.
We’ve been told to ask some thieves about the location of Salomet’s Grimoire, so off we go to the Ruins of Aernst Castle. The thief leader, Maul, won’t help, though. He confirms that he has the tome, that’s it.
How did I first discover the answer to this quest? I don’t remember. The book is up high on a broken parapet. I must — ugh, ack, geh — platform to get it. Afterwards, Maul has no idea we’ve taken it. It’s a weird fetch.
He’s a young man in our fishing village. I think he’s supposed to be sympathetic because of his yearning to explore. However, he ends up crashed out on the ground, depleted, in a rather pitiful display of ineptitude.
First he’s outside the village gates, nearby at the shore. After, he’s down the lane outside of the Encampment. Finally, he’s inside the Witchwood, barely across the threshold. Each time he says, “Sorry,” and then goes even further. It’s a very unheroic journey.
We chase him around, though, because it’s worth it later. We’re not done with Valmiro, the lad with a drop-shoulder peasant shirt and a fishing pole.
We’re wandering. I have a portcrystal, something I can drop at almost any location I find on the map, and thereafter I can fast travel to it. If I want I can pick it up and use it elsewhere. These things are the BEST.
On the town notice board are escort quests. Someone wants to go somewhere, usually someplace dangerously far away. The easiest way to do these quests is to have gone there by ourselves already and drop a portcrystal. Boom — take the quest, greet the traveller, zip to the location, and clock the completion.
This is why we’re wandering. I know that Quina will have an escort quest, and I know her travel isn’t random like most of these quests are. I’m headed to the Abbey to drop my purple stone.
Quina’s already there, dressed in nun robes. Dangit. Her escort request would’ve been on the village notice board, and I didn’t check there. At least, that’s what I think. We’ve missed whatever she would’ve said about her reasons to go to the Abbey.
Sorry.
She gives a “tee-hee” and says everyone’s talking about the Arisen.
Now that it’s too late for Quina, I go to the village. Valmiro, a local fishing lad, is missing. He is prone to mad quests, apparently, and we’re to find him.
Also, one last little surprise: as I manage inventory at the inn, Pablos chats about Gran Soren guards and how drunk they are. If the dragon brings trouble, he would “sooner turn to sisters of The Faith for protection”. Quina’s Abbey quest takes on more meaning. She’s in the robes, right? She’s become a postulate of some sort.
This game can be very particular about timing and order of quests. I’m sure it won’t be the first story moment I miss.
We go into the fahncy part of town. Ser Maximilian, Captain of the Wyrm Hunt is ready to show us four possible quests. I just grab the first in the list: Decipher a Text. He hands me a slate with old writing. Only a couple of words are understandable. “Arisen” is in there, as is “heart”. It’s obviously about us. We’re to run around town and ask for more info.
The guild building is the “gate to the Everfall”. This means nothing to us right now, but — spoiler — whoo, boy. Head Pawn Barnaby tells us it’s “a place of great importance to our kind”. For me, it’s just the next destination in the quest line-up.
When we agree to help Barnaby he takes us down the stairs to a gated doorway. Pawns are “keepers to the entrance”. Since the dragon’s coming the Everfall has a strange aura, a presence that should be investigated. That’s where we come in!
We escort Mercedes and the verrrry slow wagon carrying the hydra head to the capital city of Gran Soren. Kill or dodge a few wolves, some harpies, goblins here and there, even falling rocks. I’ve learned all the tricks for keeping the ox alive. Mercedes’ mission opens up access to the larger world and the city. This is the hub of everything, and the furthering of the story.
My Pawn, Ada, wears the fabulous yellow diaper pants as we approach Gran Soren.
She immediately abandons us, though, as if she’ll take credit with the Duke for the hydra kill. That touch of passive-aggressive envy we sensed earlier in her character comes out again here.
Watchtowers at the Encampment were destroyed by the hydra. People are still here wandering around — Reynard and Madeleine, too — but this is now a location that’s served its purpose. We leave.
Immediately outside the gate a villager stops us. “Is Quina not with you?” She went off to look for a cure for our wounds, and now she’s missing. All the Pawns tell me I should ask at the village, so down the lane we go.
The Chief, back home, tells us his daughter is gone to the Witchwood. She’s all alone in an eerie place. Can we find her?
Daytime in the village and a peddler, Madeleine, would like us to escort her to the Encampment. She’s in a tavern-wench dress, bosom popping out the top, and has an oily, flattering manner. She seems completely untrustworthy, but a quest is a quest.
