Its time. Today, we'll be tackling the next level of the Endless Paths. I get through level four just fine, killing some trolls, other monsters, and collecting some loot. Now that I'm richer (I have 17k gold!) I've splurged on camping supplies and have the max I can carry, six. I feel like I can adventure forever.
I make it back to the Drake that destroyed me the first time I attempted these Endless Paths. He destroys me again with little effort, even with everything I've learned about magic, spreading out my party, and attacking the correct vulnerabilities of my foes.
I see the fabled failure screen again:
Let's reload and try to find that Queen that I'm meant to find, as per the quests, maybe. I don't think I'm ready to fight drakes. Maybe we'll go back to that gorge and try again there. The feral druids might be manageable. I go there. They kill me too. This is a pretty brutal world. I don't know where to go or what to do next. Back to the journal, to see if there's anything else I can 'grind' on to get a bit of an edge over the competition. I have plenty of gold, can't I pay them to join me?
I load again, and go to Searing Falls. I haven't been there yet. There's a young drake. I move in and attack, with a cautious formation. There's another young drake. And a proper drake, oh, and some sort of fire elemental as well. I die again. I load again. I've achieved nothing in this current play session than dying senselessly and totally. Where else can I go?
Let's try this bridgey place, leading to this towny-looking place. I'm sure there's some quests and combat, and most importantly, XP that I can obtain here without dying. I arrive at the inn, and wander upstairs after finding nothing really interesting downstairs, other than a woman wanting you to give her engagement ring back to her husband to be. I agree.
I go upstairs, and get caught stealing. I get into a fight and kill some people that could have maybe given me quests. Oh well, I got loot from them. I'm going to be rich, and probably hated in this town (or not really that well renowned.) I carve a path through the upstairs of the inn and leave the massacre upstairs, whistling as I walk out of the inn, wearing the armor and weapons of the people I just slaughtered. I'm a classy mofo.
Turns out that the woman who was nursing a drink was worth while talking to, and completing her quest was not a waste of time. I'm rewarded handsomely for finding out the man that she hated was really a a wizard impersonating her husband to be, a wizard who is now in my stronghold's dungeon.
She rewards me handsomely for my assistance, and I'm pleased that I didn't die rendering said assistance.
I explore the rest of the Copperlane, learning about scriveners, who eat random ingredients that they find. I kill a band of brigands who are plotting to steal some gemstone from some lord, and I get another new journal entry. That probably means more XP at some point. Finally, I find the word 'catacombs' on the map. That sounds like a place where I might be able to fight things not immediately die. I head on in, and save my game.
Today's game play session involved a lot of death, and I hope that the next will have a lot of progression, enabling me to learn from my experiences. We shall see, we shall see, what horrors await me in the catacombs.