holoz0r plays Pillars of Eternity - Part XVI - Hitting the wall.

I don't wander through the valley of the shadow of death, I wander through now drained pass between the gorge, and where I need to be, to chase Thaos, man of ultimate evil, and assassination minister of things. In the manky, dank halls, there's some trolls, and I quickly kill them. There's nothing super interesting down here, but it would be difficult to be interesting after burning down an entire city.

Exiting the tunnel, I am met with some Leaden Key assassins of sort. I almost get them to side with me, but eventually, we fight. They put up a great fight, but they perish. They've got some words to say as they do. Most of them are screams and yelps of pain. That's the fantastic thing about self defense... and heartless murder.

I enter the next area and there's a whole bunch of ogres. This isn't a problem at first, until I see that there is a well balanced group of them. They swiftly dispatch my party. As the last one of my party members fall, I sigh; dejected. I load the save file. This is not a great start to ensuring the fall of all evil. Also, if I can't defeat some ogres, then I have no chance of being a totally and entirely evil creature.

My strategy changes. I go back to the stronghold and hang someone who is loitering around the place. I lose prestige. I don't care. I interact with some merchants there, rest; and then decide to descend into the depths of my dungeon. I conquer the collection of blights on the that destroyed me last time.

We unravel a part of Kana's story by completing the quest for the tablet he was after. I offer some wise words, especially when he expresses unhappiness about the situation that his idol wasn't the greatest man in the world. I proceed further into the dungeon, and lose three party members. I escape, with my life; and a sense of "Shit, what do I do next?"

I rest again, and then follow some side quests, achieving not a great deal of things, gaining a meagre amount of XP. I rage quit, and will come back to this later, knowing that I'm going to need to be stronger before proceeding.