#vatnir: you should go see the messenger

[astrocassette]

congratulations to vatnir on being the first person in the deadfire to make seren so angry they started shouting at someone (him)

[secretsfromwholecloth]

Deadfire, day 8.

Can’t believe I didn’t think of this last night—you know who’s going to be needing a nice ranged weapon pretty soon? Konstanten. He might be a melee character for most of the game if I use him at all, but as a single-class chanter, he’s too squishy to allow near the front lines in Seeker Slayer Survivor, where the combat is Super-Duper Really Not Kidding, We’re Serious Here. Especially if he’s my only healer, which he will be if I go into that DLC with my usual party (which is my usual party for a reason, I’d be sad if I missed out on their interactions). Here, Konstanten, one Essence Interrupter for you. Xoti can use something else if I want to push her back from the front lines—I’ve got a glut of unique pistols and a few bows she could use.

Nemnok! Nemnok! Nemnok!

Is it DLC time? I think it may be DLC time. :D To Harbingers’ Watch! Diving in with a party of Edér/Aloth/Xoti/Pallegina for Getting That Fucking Dragon Dead purposes, though we all know that’ll change soon enough, what with how Beast of Winter is basically Swapping Your Party Members Around A Whole Lot: The DLC.

BoW will forever be distinctive among this series’ DLCs for the way it starts out so funny and then gets (and stays) so serious after the fight with the Messenger. (Well, mostly. There are still some funny bits with the Harbingers after that fight, but they’re thinner on the ground, and the humor is much more morbid.)

Which in this case, was over with hilariously quickly—Aloth hit her with one Meteor Shower, and she was down before he could fire off a second spell. Which would’ve been Ninagauth’s Freezing Pillar if I hadn’t been micromanaging him, because the AI a) loves the absolute piss out of that spell for some reason and b) doesn’t understand what cold immunity is.

Well, Vatnir has been acquired. I think I’ll swap him in for Xoti, because I enjoy regretting all my life choices, and I’ve still got Pallegina to do my healing.

He’s also been loaded up with regeneration items, because I do not look forward to trying to keep him upright with no points in Athletics, which means no access to Second Wind.

Aloth, we’ve been over this, please stop trying to whack enemies with the heavy end of your scepter, it never goes well. Especially with high-level enemies like the ones here. Also, could you just excise Ninagauth’s Freezing Pillar from your repertoire for the rest of this DLC? Your abiding boner for that spell is doing no one any good right now.

*sigh* Shut your hole, Rymrgand. Or Anlaf will shut your hole for you, in more ways than one.

Rynhaedr makes an offhand mention of the Glamfellen chucking “objects or individuals that...persisted beyond their value to the clans” into the Vytmádh. So. Someone’s enough of an asshole, you just yeet them into the creepy freezing portal to feed them to Rymrgand? Is that how it works?

That thing where you don’t have enough Perception or whatever to properly detect a trap, so even though you get the disarm cursor when you mouse over it, you can’t actually do anything except step around it or set it off? Yeah, I don’t love that.

And now, The Bridge Ablaze. Xoti will want to see Waidwen, and...you know what? Rekke and Konstanten could both use some attention. (And I have no idea how Konstanten is level 20 despite never having been in the active party for a quest or battle, when babies I’ve actually used from time to time like Fassina and Rekke are lagging behind.)

The game seems to be unclear on how big Konstanten should be. As I swap his equipment in and out, sometimes he’s dwarf-sized, sometimes he’s scaled up to human height. And it looks like that’s in the game itself, too, not just the inventory screen.

Konstanten throwing dragons at enemies is just wonderful, it really is.

Right, this is the portion of the evening where I lie down and pull my pile of Waidwen feelngs over me like a blanket. That weighs enough to crush me. But the pain is so warm!

I’m bringing our favorite dead Readceran to see Eothas, as usual. (I almost typed “our favorite Readceran” before realizing that was, ah, debatable.)

And the rest will have to wait for morning, as it’s getting late and we slept like crap last night.

[secretsfromwholecloth]

Deadfire, day 5.

You know what, change of plans, I’m going to go after Nemnok first.

And Sikkerneq thought some Naasitaqi traditions made her uncomfortable. This is...erm. Hey, Serafen, Aloth, does either of you have a spell to disguise her as a coastal aumaua?

And oh, she’s squirming mightily at Anniq addressing her as “tundra cousin”.

I think this is the first time I’ve done Nemnok before the DLCs (and so will have him with me when meeting the imps in The Forgotten Sanctum). This should be fun.

Ah, chanters. Being able to summon a whole entire dragon in combat is delightful.

And now to Ashen Maw. Right, I should swap Xoti back in, she’ll be wanting to talk to her god.

Before Sikkerneq joined that fateful caravan, she thought dragons were these terrifyingly powerful creatures from legend. Now, though, she can speak with some authority when she says they mostly just need to shut the hell up.

Maia and Xoti’s romance banters have continued appearing since Sikkerneq and Maia have been together. You know what, no one says they have to be monogamous. Have fun, Maia.

OK, the Maia romance’s big finale at the officers’ lounge was pretty cute.

Oh, hello again, Flaune. I was getting low on things to do again. (I still haven’t gotten the box or the Llengrath visit yet—hopefully those show up by the time I’m done with Splintered Reef and Beast of Winter.)

Ooh, there’s the box. Thanks, game!

Killing the RDC mercenaries was finally enough to level up Modwyr so she’d finally tell me about her owner. (And gossip, of course. Can’t forget the gossip.)

Oh lordy, she has to kill 25 more kith to level up so I can take her to Dunnage and give her back? I’m...less than 100% certain that’s happening. Fuck it, Sikkerneq has a perfectly fine bow and some perfectly fine summoning invocations to do most of her killing with.

Stay the fuck dead, Menzzago. Copperhead, I’m sorry about, well, your entire life, but I’m kind of full up on sailors.

And now, Beast of Winter. Hm. I don’t need Maia in the party 24/7 now that her romance arc is complete, but I still don’t want to just ditch her. On the other hand, Rekke got a lot of love from the DLCs, and she’s currently taking up what would normally be his spot. I’ll have to at least swap them for the Drowned Kingdom. And oh boy, Vatnir’s going to need a spot as well, at least for part of the DLC.

It’s been a little while since Sikkerneq encountered something that made absolutely no fucking sense whatsoever. It’s almost like old times, here among the Harbingers!

OK. Initial party: Edér, Maia, Xoti, and Aloth, with Xoti getting dropped for Vatnir once the Messenger was taken out and we headed for The Endless Queries. (I’d been hoping to use the dragon summon in that fight, but it was over before I had time. Ah, story mode.)

Sikkerneq is feeling distinctly awful after seeing those trials. Even if those memories are an exaggeration, and the reality is more like what we saw in the first game, that’s still a horrible reality, and one that some form of her participated in. Fuck you, Engwith.

Party for The Bridge Ablaze: Edér, Xoti, Maia, and Rekke, because it kills me that I’ve given him so little attention with a Watcher who you’d think would’ve been able to make him a permanent fixture in the party. Keeping your love interest around comes with tradeoffs, what can I say.

And now, it’s time to get crushed under a huge pile of Waidwen feelings.

Weh.

Waaaaaaidweeeeeeeen.

Let me hug him.

Durance was probably never exactly a prize, but the priestess’s reaction to the Watcher doing their best impression of Durance as they knew him indicates that he wasn’t always that bad. I can see an irritating but mostly harmless frat-boy type becoming the Durance we know and loathe after enough trauma.

Waidwen is coming along to go see Eothas this time. I don’t think I’ll really need his help with the dragon, after all.

Party for The Drowned Kingdom: Edér, Aloth, Rekke, and Tekēhu. I need the latter three if I want to have a proper linguistic discussion when we get to the trilingual inscription, which means dropping one of Edér and Maia. And my policy on dropping Edér is well-known by now.

Hey, look, a hug!

There was definitely some furious note-taking on Sikkerneq’s part when she saw that inscription. Including passing her notebook to Tekēhu and Rekke to transcribe the parts in their languages faster and more accurately than she could.

Party for the big fights: Edér, Maia, Pallegina, and Vatnir. Let’s do this.

The fight against Neriscyrlas went pretty well. I got to summon a dragon to fight her, and I only had time to activate Wingauro and Naxiva’s boons once before the fight was over.

Rymrgand got hit with a dragon of his own, and he also went down pretty quickly. This is great!

In my previous playthroughs, I either recruited Vatnir and kept him for the rest of the game or didn’t recruit him at all. This time, I took him along for the length of the DLC and then put him back where I found him. Poor Vatnir. I feel terrible, he wanted to come along so badly. We’ll see what ending he gets this time.

And the Harbingers have been told in no uncertain terms to get their asses the Hel off that iceberg.

And now, Seeker Slayer Survivor. I’m sorely tempted to start with Rekke in the party and swap Maia in after I’ve gotten the interactions with him that I like. You know what, yeah, let’s do this.

Next up, more fun on Kazuwari.