Bury the Arisen

Dragon’s Dogma isn’t getting any easier. At this point a gentle bat from Veronica’s blade will send a common goblin flying several feet, but their hobgoblin friends are proving to be quite a bit more sturdy and are appearing more commonly. And these are still just basic mooks.

I accidentally let that random guy who was following me die. I don’t know when or where he got knocked off. I was exploring the area just west of the Witchwood, being assaulted by wolves or bandits every few steps. We eventually came to a beach where a group of bandits were catching some rays. I began a long-distance assault on them by firing off a few arrows into their own archers, and then I noticed that they were chillin’ with a cyclops.

The ensuing battle was frantic and much blood as shed on both sides, but I refused to retreat and eventually we emerged victorious. As the cyclops’ corpse melted into a bubbling pile of goo and I wondered why it didn’t drop any loot, I noticed that the destination marker on my map was gone. I also couldn’t see the dude I was escorting. My quest log told me I’d failed though, so I guess the only explanation is that he got smooshed by the cyclops and I was too embroiled in the heat of battle to notice. I figured I’d let him go though, he didn’t seem overly important. Also I didn’t want to have to fight that battle again.

We have since slain a few more cyclopes during our travels. Turns out they’re not particularly difficult to bring down if they don’t have backup. We probably could have taken out that one in the forest and gotten that one guy to his destination. Oops.

On another adventure to escort one of the minor plot-related characters to a fort just north of that same beach, I encountered my very first dragon. My party charged the beast, and… were quickly torn to shreds. I had since hired a couple stronger allies and we’d even freshened up at a rest stop not a hundred paces from where the dragon lurked, but we still weren’t even able to put a ding in its life bar. I did manage to live a little longer than my allies by clinging to the relatively safe spot between the drake’s wings, but he knew I could only hold on for so long and flew into the sky. My grip failed and I plummeted to the ground where I became a big red splotch on the landscape.

After learning to avoid dragons like the plague, I eventually delivered my new charge to her destination. On the way back to town I noticed a chimera prowling around downhill from the path my party was following. We hadn’t had any luck with chimeras in the past, but we’d packed on a few levels since we’d last seen one, and I’d even paid the big bucks to hire a pawn that was several levels stronger than the rest of us. Her name was Zena and her attack power was an atonishing 800+ as compared to Veronica’s meek 350ish. Maybe we’d have a chance.

I began the fight as I begin all fights, by trying to get a few arrows stuck into my enemy before they can bear down on us. The chimera was able to close the gap quicker than the average bandit group though, and the battle had begun in earnest before I’d nocked my third arrow. I was packing a couple dozen exploding arrows for a situation such as this, but completely forgot about them until it was over. Derp.

My mage ally (she was rather forgettable, but had some good spells) and I initially tried to keep our distance from the creature while Veronica and Zena mounted a close-range assault, but the thing was moving around too erratically for me to get a good bead on it with my bow. I leapt onto the back of the beast in an effort to sever its snake-tail, but was blasted away by the goat-head’s magic. A second attempt was much more successul; I was able to remove the snake and disable the goat before dismounting the creature.

We’d made it this far once before, and it seems that when all that is left is the lion, it becomes twice as fierce. He learned that killing my mage was a good way to debilitate the team and keep me from doing any damage, and until he got bored of her I seemed to be constantly reviving her. Eventually we were able to overcome the monster, and I gleefully collected its tasty, tasty loot. It was the most challenging battle that we’d faced yet, and we had just barely eked out the victory but we made it through. It was a grand victory for me and my team, and I couldn’t have been more proud.

Then I didn’t save and got killed by bandits. Fuck.

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