Category: Episode Enneagrams

I can’t help myself. I must step into the Bitterblack DLC, just briefly, and experience the high-end fighting. Of course, I’ve cheated and taken two experienced pawns with me, so the danger is minimal. One of the monster-monsters shows himself long enough to intimidate us. Death is the trickiest boss in the game.

After this thrill, I return to the castle and turn in my completed Wyrm Hunt quest and take on the next. Investigate a cult, it says. Now I will dive into the Salvation mystery.

I’m told it’s a secret society that worships the dragon. They like the “perdition” it brings.

Mason has been asking questions about Salvation but no one will confide in him. As he says, he’s “cursed with a villain’s mien”. 

He’s not. I have his screen grab as evidence.

It’s my job to investigate. After asking around, I learn that the “gathering” will have a “high officiant presiding” and will be held in the catacombs. If that sounds creepy, it’s because it is.

Preparing to leave Gran Soren I hear the town crier: “Can this Arisen slay the dragon as our Lord Grace did?” Duke Edmun continues to reveal his backstory via dropped asides.

Also, no pressure lol.

The second Wyrm Hunt quest involves helping The Faith survey an ancient ruin hidden behind a waterfall. Upon entering I am told by the pawns that this was once “a place of worship and training for clerics of the old gods.” 

Apparently The Faith has supplanted or incorporated elements of an older religion? And this earlier, presumably more nature-based, worship knew about the dragon?

Don’t try to understand too much. Just go with it.

We find poor Brother Jean dead on the ground. And it becomes obvious what caused his demise.

The cyclops drops an orb (was it in his eye socket??) that unlocks a mysterious door. We drain the water in the lower levels, fight some skeletons, and recover five ancient texts.

These slates may have “revelations of vast importance”, which The Faith will decipher.

Someday maybe I’ll know what they said.

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.

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.