We continue towards the Bierhalle. Seeing that we might encounter raep by mythical beasts of lore soon, I round out the party with another churl.
But something spawns on the road along the way.
This highway robbery is not going to be left unpunished!
Naturally, we pursue the thieves to return the goods to the trader.
The Friends of the First have made their last mistake!
Let us inspect these rude chaps.
That's some superchurl among them. Judging by the attack bonuses on the thief and outlaw, he must be a leader - these are enemies that boost their underlings' combat abilities.
Still, this shouldn't be too bad.
Thieves are annoying because they have very high speed. Even Ullin with his speed 8 goes after the thief.
Ilsa the she-wolf has no trouble killing the wounded outlaw.
Njal soon dispatches the thief.
While the rest bumrush the superchurl until he dies. We took a few hits back there, but nothing major.
Wooooo. We struck gawld! Not a whole lot but it's something.
Since we got beaten a little, I set up camp before going into the cave.
Resting in the field is less effective than in a town and brings back only 2 HP/day.
The bierhalle awaits.
The cave we've just entered is a 'dungeon'. These are stacks of trashy/attritive events that end with some kind of bigger event - in this case, there are 6 events to be found here. As we know from the gossip we got on it, there should be a foul wurm at the bottom, and our followers have the same to report:
Anyone could boast if he bested the wurm who waits at the bottom of this pit.
The smell of a wurm wafts from below.
Even I have heard that there's a wurm and a woman down here.
A woman? The plot thickens!
ONWARD!
ur not a wurm
Wrestling the troll is a might check, and I'm not too optimistic about our might 5 to wrestle a
troll, especially after witnessing Njal's failure at the nithing pole, so instead I opt to hack its arm off and see what happens.
The *splat* sound would suggest that the outcome is not entirely favourable...
Let's see those broken bones at the god's portrait.
Yeah, I'm not leaving that on. Fortunately we can use Healing Hands to cure ourselves of everything bad in-between events for the bargain price of 1 soul.
This uses up our final soul for the moment, but I think it's worth it.
We continue into the cave.
More broken trolls ahoy.
Let's see how these work.
They appear tough but slow. Hopefully we can kill them fast with our superior speed before they can get too many hits in.
Ullin jumps to engage the weaker trollshard.
While god and Ilsa take on the tougher ones.
Agni takes down the cleft shard before it can act.
And then all it takes is some bumming
To clear out the rest. I think they only got a single hit on the god and wolf. Not too shabby.
Obviously there is no reward for dungeon pest control, other than the opportunity to go forth.
Hello there, good folk.
I am a river to my people! And by "I", I mean "Ullin", because he can lead them out much faster.
"Mood" checks morale. Given that Ullin is loyal, I wouldn't expect anything else.
That death glare from Ullin
Let us proceed deeper.
(can't believe this shitty vid is the only recording of this cutscene on youtube)
This fight may be a bit tougher than what came before.
Two shade fighters that appear identical to ours, and one that seems stronger. Still, with some tictax we should be able to defeat them with limited HP loss.
We engage the shades with our heavy-hitters.
Then back them up with the rest. Njal finally lets his bonus vs undead shine and, well, it isn't particularly impressive. By my guesstimate he whacks them about as effectively as the fighter? Which given his might 2 (vs the fighter's 4) would probably mean double damage, but that's like the double damage of a baby fart.
The shades vanish as they die. Unfortunately, they got a lot more strikes in than I would have wanted.
And again, pest control grants us nothing but bruises.
There's one event left before we reach the wurm at the bottom. I'll check out what it is, then leave to heal up. Leaving a dungeon costs a day to backtrack, so it's best to get as far in as you can.
Like hell I'm giving anything to some effeminate manlet with a mongrel.
And I sure as hell am not giving him either my max HP or the only item in my possession.
EAT STEEL!
well this was to be expected
There will be no fleeing from this fight.
though this wasn't
Well fuck.
Note that the retreat button (the running stick figure) is greyed out, which means this is a fight to the death. Guess the wizard has cornered us with his minions.
And some fucking minions they are. A wolf and two strong fighter shades, all with attack boosts, and the wizard has a whopping 6 HP too, while our dudes are significantly battered.
This will be ugly.
The true power is here
I take advantage of Ullin's first strike and wolf bonus to strike the wizard's fetch. It goes down to half hp!
The asshole wizard jumps to engage the churl, the weakest actual combatant in our party.
This will need some careful strategy...
I figure that with first strike, the god should be able to handle the damaged shade on the top. Meanwhile Ilsa is way too wounded to risk attacking, so I skip her turn and keep the stronger shade busy with Agni the fighter, then I put Njal on the wizard's wolf to be absolutely sure that Ullin kills it next turn.
Let's see how this works.
One down, three to go.
I reinforce the god with Ilsa and Njal to kill the top shade.
Another round starts, and things are starting to look bad.
Everyone is near-dead while there are still two strong enemies left to dispatch. I skip Ullin's turn because I don't want him anywhere in harm's way.
This would be a good moment to run... if we could run.
RIP Atli the churl. You were instrumental in this fight.
Unfortunately the shade also kills Agni, while I was placing all my bets on him surviving another round, because I wanted to bumrush the wizard with Ilsa and the god, and the shade with all the rest. That was why I skipped the god's turn this round to not have him get hit by the wizard.
Njal bravely challenges the shade!
Ullin reinforces Ilsa, god jumps in to help the very obviously doomed Njal.
And then it turns out that the fucking shade isn't dumb enough to just whack a disposable non-combatant meatshield, and instead cleaves through the god and sends him flying
When the god drops to 0 HP in combat, he retreats to a hidey-hole, gets crippled and is effectively removed from the fight. He'll only be executed if the rest of the party falls.
Ullin strikes a death blow on the wizard, only for it to turn out that the fucker can slurp on his minions to cheat death and regain some HP. Fortunately that last remaining shade was so damaged that the wizard got only a sliver of health back.
Thus Ilsa ripped him apart with her next attack.
effin 'ell
Naturally I leave the stupid cave because we are in no shape to do anything.
Fortunately there's a shrine close by. Hopefully we can drag ourselves there before anyone decides to ambush us.
Halleluyah.
It would appear that this shrine also has a crisis that is of interest to us, but we don't do anything until we've rested.
Resting in shrines costs an arm and a leg but it's super-effective. It heals ALL HP, removes ALL negative conditions, and even improves morale up to 3, as seen by the smiling Njal.
Now let's see about that high priest.
In the eaves are folk swayed by his wayward words.
His words are false.
What shall we do about this renegade high priest, ye codex?
"Tell him to worship his gods" is a god wits check. "Let Njal meet his words" will test Njal's wits. The other options appear self-explanatory.
