Tag Archives: PC

Tales Have Been Told

I’ve written about playing each entry of Telltale’s series of The Walking Dead adventure games here and, for the most part, really enjoyed all of them. I’ve been meaning to go back and play some of their other, similar titles for a while now, and thanks to a nice sale on the Xbox Store and a little bit of luck, I ended up playing three of them more or less back to back.

“Our two main characters, Clem and Javi.”

Since we are basically hooked on the series, my girlfriend and I made plans to dive into the latest installment of The Walking Dead, The Walking Dead: A New Frontier, as soon as we found out the release date for it. We picked it up on the Xbox One and, like The Walking Dead: Michonne before it, we decided to play each episode as it was released.

The first thing I need to mention, especially after how my game log entry about it devolved into a bit of a rant, is that this version of this particular game (yay, qualifiers!) has none of the horrendously unacceptable, bullshit performance issues and other bugs that plagued us on the Xbox 360 version of The Walking Dead: Michonne. Telltale apparently put a lot of work into their engine in advance of Batman: The Telltale Series, work which carried on to A New Frontier. At fucking last, Telltale! No more issues of the engine constantly interrupting my enjoyment of the game; it ran silky smooth.

“More thrilling dialog choices…”

With the engine upgrade also comes an upgrade to graphical capability, and with it, a big shift in art style. The TWD games have been stylized to look like the comic books the franchise is based on since the beginning but A New Frontier does something totally new by filling in the space between the ink brush strokes with some real time lighting applied to its 3D models. No longer do characters look flat, but instead look just a tiny step closer to realistic. While this change is subtle at first glance, in direct comparison the change of art style is actually pretty massive. It’s a little odd upon closer inspection, mixing two completely different, opposing even, styles of shading, but it somehow works and most of the time I think A New Fonrtier looks spectacular.

Onto the story. Notably, you don’t play as Clementine too much this time around. In fact, she’s much more of a side character, which I’m sure will disappoint a lot of series fans, and results in the game feeling a bit more like a side story, ala TWD: Michonne or the 400 Days episode. Perhaps this was intended, I mean, this isn’t called “The Walking Dead: Season 3” after all. Nonetheless, I found cocky and/or warmhearted Javier “Javi” García to be quite a fun character to play. Javi is dealing with a constant, morally difficult conflict between devotion to family, a family which is, in itself, full of its own, similar conflict, and more selfish pursuits, which feel equally justifiable. In either case, Javi’s motives are relatable, which makes the dramatic choices you have to make all that much more nail-biting.

“Well, I didn’t say they were BFFs…”

Besides less of a focus on Clem, another big complaint leveled against A New Frontier seems to be what people feel is a decreased sense of player agency. From misleading choices, to those choices not really impacting the overall narrative as one might expect. Given that most of these complaints are from fans of the previous games, it shouldn’t be necessary to go into the way that practically all of these Telltale adventure games since the first season of TWD lack any major “branching”, or how the effects of most of your decisions are, in fact, only clever tricks to make you feel like you’re having a huge impact on the course of the story. Instead, I believe the intended effect is exactly what happened to me with A New Frontier: I didn’t really notice. Instead, I enjoyed the effect I had on how my character behaved, and how his behaviors were perceived and impacted the behaviors of the characters around him in the moment, regardless of whether decision A moved to the story in a different direction than decision B. To put it another way, these games are about characterization, not consequence.

All in all, we really enjoyed A New Frontier. While it didn’t impact me quite as much as any of the other games in the series, immediately after finishing it, I’d easily hold it up alongside Season 1 and Season 2. Now that some time has passed, it really feels a bit more like a side story, as mentioned, and that has me curious about how Telltale plans to follow this up. Most likely, we’ll see an actual third season that more closely follows Clementine, with the events of A New Frontier having little impact on its story.

“Our titular hero, Bigby Wolf.”

Jonesing for more during the agonizingly long the waits between episodes of A New Frontier, we finally played through the much lauded The Wolf Among Us. The Wolf Among Us came out right after the highly successful season 1 of The Walking Dead, and, to Telltale’s credit, was well regarded as a follow-up. In fact, judging from time spent scouring various forum topics, ranking videos, etc., it remains a lot of people’s all time favorite Telltale game. It was only after that very positive reception was firmly in-place that I decided I wanted to play it. The main reason I had held off for so long was that the whole concept of playing some sort of gritty, realistic portrayal of fairy tale characters seemed utterly ridiculous to me. I mean, you play as a dude named “Bigby Wolf” who is, in fact, the big bad wolf? Come on!

The truth is, between the art, which is similar to TWD’s take on translating traditional, still comic book imagery into textures on 3D polygons, but so much more colorful and vibrant, the amazing gritty 1980s New York City atmospheric, the synth-laden soundtrack, and the whole film noir, detective trying to piece together a mystery vibe of the basic plot, TWAU was actually a very easy game for me to get into. The whole fairy-tale meets gritty reality premise is introduced slowly and enough of the details are left vague that rather than feeling to forced and silly it actually manages to feel come across as intriguing. Once you start to learn more about them, the characters are also quite interesting, which is kind important for a Telltale adventure game.

“One of the few graphical adventure game throwback exploration sections.”

Specific criticisms? Well, first, unlike A New Frontier’s updated engine that I just complimented Telltale on, I was surprised to find out just how badly the Xbox One version of TWAU, using this much older version of the engine, suffered from poor performance. It wasn’t nearly as bad as my experience with TWD: Michonne on Xbox 360, but it was still damn frustrating at times and unquestionably hampered my enjoyment of the game. The main issues that I found absolutely unacceptable were occasional moments when dialog was cut short, or even muted entirely. That’s a big problem on such a dialog driven, narrative heavy game. This type of shit really should have never made it past QA.

I also take some issue with the story itself, and I’ll be vague to avoid spoilers. It might have related to the choices we made during our particular playthrough, and maybe my own perception of my character and the plot as it developed, but the way the main plot wrapped up felt a little rushed. Specifically, during the trial and how I chose to handle it, it felt more like Bigby was on trial than defendant, and various important aspects of the crimes our antagonist was being condemned for, and even additional crimes, weren’t even brought up, which might have affected that. Then, the scene just sort of… ended. I also wasn’t a big fan of the very end, which I honestly didn’t get at first. It was only after scratching my head and doing a little reading online that I figured out what they were attempting to convey, which of course makes the whole thing feel more hamfisted than clever in its execution. It also felt strange that there wasn’t a more solid sense of closure between Bigby and Snow, when there definitely should have been.

“Some people just need a beat down.”

Oh, and the incredibly one dimensional character of Bloody Mary, with her silly comic book villain dialog, when compared to the texture of the other characters and the overall tone of the game, came across as exceedingly out of place to me. Maybe she’s as equally boring and boilerplate in the comics, I don’t know, but it took me out of the game just a little every time she made another lame appearance.

It doesn’t sound like it, but I really liked the game, and probably wouldn’t be so critical of it if I hadn’t gone into it with extremely inflated expectations. Bloody Mary aside, I think many of my misgivings about the plot could be easily smoothed over by some proper treatment in a sequel. Hell, I might have a more positive impression of it just by replaying it and making some different choices, for that matter.

Finally, after completing TWD: A New Frontier and The Wolf Among Us, spurred on by both my enjoyment of those two games and of the completion of season 7 of the wildly popular HBO series, I decided to finally cross Game of Thrones off of my backlog. We had both separately completed the demo of the first episode of Game of Thrones on the Xbox 360 around the time it was originally released, but she didn’t really get into it very much, and while I wanted to play more, I couldn’t quite work it into my schedule at the time.

“Back to the wall… hey wait, is that Jon Snow?!”

Game of Thrones came right after TWD Season 2 as well as the fan favorite Tales of the Borderlands, which in turn were right on the heels of the first season of The Walking Dead and the aforementioned The Wolf Among Us. With that in mind, I didn’t know how much of an enjoyable experience this would be, engine-wise. Thankfully, some odd glitches and slow loading times aside, the engine used in the Game of Thrones seemed to run pretty decently on my Xbox One. Definitely not the shit-show that TWAU was, at least.

The art style takes an odd turn from the two other games. Models still have a similar, cartoony stylization to the TWD and TWAU, it completely eschews the comic book styled textures and shading of those games. Instead, it attempts to look more like it was hand painted by applying some sort of a filter over everything. Sometimes it looks great, but for the most part it really didn’t seem to achieve the effect I imagine they were going for. Odder still, the slightly more realistic approach to the graphics goes off the rails when introducing characters that we’re familiar with from the Game of Thrones HBO series, fully modeling the characters after their actors, and at times, producing an unsettling “uncanny valley” effect. They may not look bad in the screenshots here, but in motion? Ick.

Besides their likenesses, a lot of the actors from the series also lend their considerable acting talents to help voice their characters. This is, by far, one of the more enjoyable parts of the game for big Game of Thrones fans. Then again, the soundtrack, inspired by the music of the series, is also excellent, and there is a lot more fan service where those things came from; innumerable references to both the HBO series AND George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire book series abound. This game really is a treat for fans, and goes quite deep into immersing the player into the setting. Perhaps too far…

“FUCK this fucking guy.”

You see, this game is one of the most vicious video games I’ve ever played. It’s true to the setting and the tone of the source material, no doubt, but playing as characters in the world, and characters who aren’t exactly being dealt a lot of winning hands to boot, is incredibly oppressive. From the very first episode, House Forrester suffers terrible turn after terrible turn, and every decision you make is met with another terrible outcome. After 6 episodes, it almost starts to feel like some sort of abusive relationship. It’s a common complaint about the game, with some people even claiming they couldn’t make it through to the end because of how harsh it felt, like you were being constantly kicked around by everybody, at every turn.

On top of that, a lot of people complained that they didn’t feel like they possessed the agency to get themselves out of those terrible situations. Always on the defensive, your characters are constantly having to decide between trying to stand up for their family and their honor, or submitting in service of possibly keeping the situation from somehow getting even worse. The decisions in this game are definitely extremely difficult, and just like other Telltale games, there isn’t necessary a correct choice, as there are bleak consequences no matter how you choose to play. This didn’t hamper my enjoyment of the game, however, as like I said in regards to A New Frontier, Telltale’s games are more about experiencing the characterization of and resulting from your choices, not so much the direct consequences of those actions on the overall story.

“Caught between Cersei and Margaery, of course you should lie.”

Speaking of characterization, one thing that did bother me a little was the fact that, as I alluded to, you play multiple characters. Just like the books and the HBO series, the game constantly has you hopping around between different major characters. It definitely keeps things interesting, exposing you to a lot more variety in scenarios and settings, but playing so many different characters also takes a little away from really getting to know your character, and sometimes interrupts flow of the story. By the time you make it to the end of the last episode this issue has mostly gone away, but it was still notable to me, particularly since I initially went into the game with a vague plan of how I’d try to roleplay my (single) character. Oops.

Another common complaint and one that stuck out to me as well, is that the noble house you play as, House Forrester, closely parallels House Stark, the primary characters of the books and HBO series. Not only are the Forresters another northern house who suffers from similar circumstances as the Starks, but individually, they each align with the Starks just a little too well, with the biggest departure being the character of Asher Forrester, who really doesn’t have an analog. This is only the smallest of complaints, and the characters do mostly come into their own as the game progresses, but probably not coincidentally, Asher was my favorite character to play as.

“Asher Forrester and Beskha.”

While I did agree with most of those complaints, overall I liked the game. Its brutality left me with many of the same type of “ohhhhh shit!” moments as the source material, which is ultimately a good thing. As the credits rolled on the final episode, I found myself thinking a lot about how they could possibly have a sequel to Game of Thrones, considering that House Forrester was almost entirely decimated, and so many important characters were killed or otherwise completely screwed over. Alas, it didn’t seem worth dwelling on given that Game of Thrones seemed to have been relatively unpopular, and a sequel seemed doubtful.

Well, much to my surprise Telltale announced that we’d be getting “The Final Season” of it’s Walking Dead game series, and a second season of The Wolf Among Us in 2018, and yes, we’d even be getting a season 2 of Game of Thrones in 2019. What?! I can’t let myself get too excited, since Telltale has probably cancelled almost as many games as it has released, but I’m definitely looking forward to learning more. Game of Thrones season 2 intrigues me the most. Surely it will involve the remaining Forresters somehow seeking retribution for the events of the first game, but I can think of quite a few interesting ways they could execute on that, so who knows. In any case, expect to read a lot more thoughts about Telltale games here in the next couple of years. Oh, and I just scored Back to the Future and Borderlands for free from that Xbox Store, so… 🙂

Screenshots swiped from all over the place, mostly from the PC versions of the game, NOT from my actual playthroughs!

Lost in Erangel (…And in Space!)

This entry is so massively overdue that I’m honestly not sure where to even start at this point, so I’ll just dive in. Apologies if this is a little more “stream of consciousness” than my normal posts.

I started playing PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (AKA “PUBG”) in early April, after an old friend from the TPG days and I linked back up and he mentioned being eager to start playing it with friends. Coincidentally, one of my favorite, randomly discovered YouTube channels, FUBARBUNDY, which is usually dedicated to antics within DayZ, posted a video of some PUBG action. I actually first became intrigued by the idea of this style of game after watching another FUBARBUNDY video in which he played the similar (and related) H1Z1: King of the Kill. I hadn’t seen anything quite like either game. They took some of the core ideas of DayZ and other, similar survival games, and gave them a mega dose of adrenaline.

“Lying in wait.”

I didn’t mentioned it here, but I did very briefly dabble in DayZ. Only very briefly. I’ve been interested in the game since the early days when it was still a mod, but resisted trying it out, afraid that I’d either hate the harsh playstyle of the game, or become absolutely addicted to it. Again, I largely have FUBARBUNDY’s insane videos to blame for my more recent bout of interest. In DayZ’s case, it was for making the game look far more interesting and dynamic than it actually tends to be. That said, I loved the immersive feel of the world. Exploring the desolate, empty landscape, and the possibility of running into other players was endlessly intriguing, but I didn’t like dealing with zombies or wildlife, or how all of my minor injures started to add up until my focus had to shift from the seemingly impossible task of finding guns and ammo to finding first aid and medical supplies, or how most of the time when you do run into another player it doesn’t lead to teaming up, or an interesting conversation, a stickup, or anything besides a well placed bullet from afar. I took several stabs at it, but in the end the pace was just far too slow. PUBG though? It’s like DayZ for impatient people.

“Scoping out a compound before I approach”

Now, most people reading this will already be familiar with PUBG as it has become a bit of a phenomenon since it was released into Steam Early Access. Just in case though, here’s a quick summary:

You and 99 other players are air dropped onto a deserted island devoid of much outside of a disturbing amount of guns, ammunition, body armor, medical supplies, and the occasional vehicle. Your goal is to be the last person left alive. So, at it’s core you have a death match across a huge battlefield with an element of looting and survival tacked on. It’s not some bizarre social experiment though, games could last hours without something to give them a little more focus. Instead, inspired by the likes of Battle Royale and The Hunger Games, players are constantly being funneled closer and closer together, as the playable area of the map constricts, eventually forcing anyone left to end up in extremely close quarters. Because of this, matches tend to be over within 40 minute or so, and (more likely) much, much quicker if you die earlier on in the game.

“Pro tip: Don’t skimp on fashion.”

That is one of the strengths of the gameplay model: total, brutal elimination. The number of players left alive is always displayed in the HUD, and is constantly dwindling down. Thanks to a damage model erring on the side of “realism”, you can die very quickly in this game, and you, without a doubt, will. You will have bad games that end in someone beating you to death within the first few minutes of the match, you will have bad games in which you fully gear up, only to find yourself ambushed as you make your way across the map, all your progress vanishing in seconds, and you will have bad games when you make it to the very end of the match only to be outgunned with only a few other players left alive. The game is so brutal that I’m honestly surprised it gets as much love as it does. There’s something really special about the gameplay loop that just keeps you coming back though, and on those rare occasions when you do actually win? Amazing.

“Running through the hay fields.”

Besides the frustration associated with taking a lot of inspiration from its earliest incarnation as an ArmA mod, tending to lean a bit more towards “realism” in various areas in addition to the aforementioned damage model, the effect of “RNG” on each match is also often a topic of out of game discussion. Where you can land, who lands with you, what items and vehicles you find around you early on, and where the playzone constricts to are all vital to your success. In fact, many of my best matches have been, not coincidentally, when the playzone ended up focusing the fight in the location I was already in, allowing me to spend more time on gearing up and fighting than traveling. Likewise, many of my worse matches found me traveling far across the map, often slogging it without a vehicle, and desperately lacking good gear.

“Expect to meet strange men in their underwear, and shoot them.”

So I’ve been playing this game for something like 5 months now which begs the question “what do I like about it?” Well, I actually really enjoy the semi-tactical gameplay, with more realistic handling weapons, including quick time-to-kill, and the ability to move stealthily, or lay prone in wait. Like the ArmA series, I enjoy the wide-open battlefields and the tactical scenarios that kind of freedom can provide, including a nice mix of long range and CQB engagements. I also really enjoy sneaking around and loot old buildings, which is something I’m apparently just into. *cough* State of Decay *cough* I enjoy the intensity of having to spot enemies on the distant horizon and pay attention to the sound of their movements close around you. I also really enjoy the camaraderie of playing these matches with other players when in duo or team matches – being able to work as a team under these conditions is a lot of fun, especially with the added component of being able to revive your fallen teammates, massively altering your priorities versus playing solo.

“Proof that I’ve won at least one match in my life.”

This game has, no doubt at all, sometimes frustrated the hell out of me. My friends and I have gotten into arguments and left sessions annoyed and irritable on far too many occasions. Yet, at the same time, I’ve also made some new friends and relished practically every “chicken dinner” (PUBG slang for a win) I’ve been able to score, whether I was instrumental in the win or carried by my teammates. With the game continuing to improve with every update, I’m glad I decided to take the plunge. I really don’t know how long its legs will continue to be for me, but I’ve already gotten my money out of it at this point.

“Journey to beautiful solar systems…”

Another game I’ve been playing lately is Everspace. Everspace is a cross between an old school, semi-arcadey space sim (think the Wing Commander series, Freespace, etc.) and a rogue-like. You journey from sector to sector exploring randomly generated systems filled with loot, enemies, and other resources but when you die, you die, starting over from scratch. Well, as these things go in rogue-likes, mostly from scratch; you retain any cash you gained in your run which you can spend on skill tree upgrades, and some other special items, such as crafting blueprints, that will also help you in future runs.

“…and shoot everyone in them!”

Not only is it fucking beautiful, but this game has also proven to massively addictive. Your ship controls excellently, even on a controller (I’m playing the Xbox One version) and the space combat is just deep enough to be fun and, at times, a little challenging. My only real complaint is that I wish there was a bit more variety to the random areas and enemies, or even some crazy random scenario ala another space themed rogue-like, FTL: Faster Than Light, as I’ve already hit a bit of a wall with it. Honestly, that’s fairly typical with how I play rogue-like style games, so I can’t cast any blame there. Even still, it served me well in allowing me brief but highly appreciated vacation into the space combat genre and I’d highly recommend it to anyone who is a fan of the genre.

Oh, and for you VR types, the PC version has Vive support!

The Tale of Garn Chapter 54

Warning: potential main quest spoilers ahead!

From Garn’s recollections:

Paradise

Martin rode back to Cloud Ruler Temple while I stayed at Bruma to help tend to the wounded and the dead. Many good men died on that day, including many important members of the order of the Blades, and I felt it only right to take a moment to see to them. After helping where I could and ensuring the rest was left in good hands, I met Martin back at the temple. Martin had just finished making his final preparations. After giving me some last minute advice and making sure I was fully prepared the ritual began.

“Paradise awaits!”

Strange smells filled our nostrils and the great hall gradually appeared to be enveloped in a thick, dark haze, then with a mighty crack the ground sprang open and a portal, not unlike a smaller version of the Oblivion gates, appeared before us. At first the portal itself was tiny, but with a second, deafening crack, the portal took on its full shape and after a few brief moments seemed to stabilize. With a quick nod to Martin I gripped my sword and stepped through the gate.

“A beautiful backdrop for eternal torment.”

In a flash I appeared in a clearing in the middle of a beautiful wood. As Martin predicted there was no return portal behind me – I was simply stuck there. I climbed a nearby hill to take in the area. Exotic wildflowers of rare colors were everywhere and the land was dotted with intricate white marble structures such as bridges and gazebos. I began to follow what seemed to be a path through the hills when I came upon an ice Atronach chasing a man through the trees. I quickly dispatched the Atronach using a flame spell and approached the severely shaken Briton.

The man had little in the way of clothing and was covered in minor scratches and bruises yet to my surprise he addressed me with pompousness not typically heard from someone who was cowering for their lives not seconds earlier. I met several such people while navigating these gardens. From what I could piece together they were servants of Mankar Camoran’s who died and, fulfilling his promise, were blessed with immortality and sent to his paradise. When Mehrunes Dagon had conquered our world they’d return to rule over it as lords. At least, that was the plan.

“Always read the small print when signing up for a Daedric cult.”

While in this place (which they called Gaiar Alata) they were constantly tormented by the Daedric creatures who shared it with them and if they were killed they would simply be reborn to continue the torturous cycle. Most of them seemed to have been driven to the point of despair, if not utter madness, and seemed to have deep regret for their service to Camoran and Prince Dagon though surprisingly a few still remained loyal.

“My retribution is ongoing, actually…”

Eventually I came across a single bridge guarded by a Dremora warrior in full battle gear. To my surprise he greeted me on sight instead of charging at me like so many others I had faced. The Dremora introduced himself as Kathutet and claimed that his kin had fought me and said I fought well for a mortal, so well that they they had a certain respect for me and therefore it was no dishonor to speak with me. He told me he would let me pass if I could do a service for him, that, or challenge him. Either option would bring him honor. While I was unaccustomed to a talkative Dremora, he still served the Daedra, and I would not serve him. I drew my sword. He smiled with approval.

“Kethutet: Not-so-adoring fan.”

Kethutet was strong, and his mighty Daedric longsword slammed against my Crusader’s blade, nearly pushing me off of my feet. As I slammed him back I found time to unleash a flame blast and hit him directly, causing him to unleash a horrific roar of pain. I parried his next attack as well, and another I blocked with my shield. Pushing him off of me a second time, I again cast a flame blast at him, knocking him off of his feet. I crossed the bridge and into the cave that he seemed to have been guarding.

I soon found myself in a complicated cave system that appeared to be some sort of Mythic Dawn dungeon. The cultists here were, seemingly, torturing other servants of Mankar Camoran. Given that everyone here was immortal, many of the torture methods I witnessed were particularly brutal. Soon I heard the voice of Mankar Camoran himself booming throughout the cave system. He seemed to be speaking directly to me, so no doubt his servants and guards knew I was here, somewhere.

“There’s actually a guy at the end of this chain. Yep, glad I skipped Mythic Dawn recruitment day.”

He spoke of the Daedra being the true gods, and the Divines I serve being false pretenders. He spoke of Tamriel being just another realm of Oblivion. Some of these ideas I heard before, read from some of the heretical books I studied in the Imperial City while searching for clues to my past. In the present though, I had faith in the Divines, and attempted to ignore Camoran’s ceaseless saber rattling.

I tried my best to avoid detection while I continued through the grotto but found myself face to face with one of the torturers. I drew my sword but he put his hands up, pleading for me to stop. He claimed that he could help me escape this place and take my revenge upon Mankar Camoran. Since at this point I had found myself quite lost in these maze-like caverns my curiosity peaked. I listened. He said his name was Eldamil and that he was one of Mankar Camoran’s chief lieutenants before he was slain in the battle of Kvatch. He claimed he had since had much time to come to regret his part of seeing the Mythic Dawn’s plans to fruition. He wanted to attone for his sins by helping me defeat Mankar Camoran. I had no particular reason to trust Eldamil but given what I had witnessed in my short time in “paradise” I also had no reason to doubt that he might have come to regret his place at Camoran’s side. Camoran already knew I was here, after all, so there was no point in attempting to deceive me with someone like Eldamil.

“It turns out that the Dremora still hate me after all. :(“

Eldamil escorted me through the dungeon as if I was another one of Camoran’s men condemned to torture and while the other ascended immortals ignored me, some of the Dremora who guarded the grotto saw through our ruse. Eldamil and I soon found ourselves in an all out fight to escape the caverns. Thankfully, after defeating several fierce Dremora guards we found the exit and made haste to Carac Agailor, Mankar Camoran’s palace.

We were met at the gates by Ruma and Raven Camoran, Mankar’s children. They escorted us to see Mankar Camoran himself. Mankar spoke of the changes Tamriel would face under he and Prince Dagon’s reign and how fate had brought him and I together, as one final test of his supremacy. He assumed that I was a pretender and that they could make some sort of an example out of me as well as end Martin’s chances of stopping the invasion in a single, decisive move. They were quite wrong. While they might have the Daedra on their side, I was the Divine Crusader, and I had the Nine watching over me.

“Err. A little sadistic to kill his children in front of him, but the ends justify the means, right?”

Ruma and Raven summoned Daedric armor and weapons and charged me while Mankar sat in his throne, an amused smirk on his face. Eldamil crippled Raven with a surprise electric bolt from behind me as Ruma and I traded swings. Soon it was two against one, and soon, just two. Mankar Camoran no longer wore his smile but instead became enraged. Standing up from his throne and raising his staff over his head he pointed at Eldamil who instantly dropped dead, electricity cracking over his body. I raised my shield and charged.

Catching him by surprise, I hit Mankar Camoran with a mighty shield bash and pinned in him the corner of his throne room, then quickly darted back. I peppered him with fireballs while he answered with a strong blast of lightning from his staff. I blasted him with fire bolt, tumbled to my right, and blasted him yet again. While I had no doubt that Mankar was a powerful mage, and one which had been bestowed the many gifts of a Daedric Prince at that, he seemed to have grown out of practice when it came to dueling. I rolled toward him as he cast his own fire bolt at me causing him to shoot wide and miss me entirely. As I rolled back to my feet the gleaming steel blade of Sword of the Crusader plunged deep into his belly. He he collapsed clutching his wounds I reached out for the Amulet of Kings and snatched it off of his neck.

As soon as Mankar Camoran had drawn his final breath his palace, and indeed his entire world, began to crumble around me. I raised my shield above my head and attempted to weave through the falling debris but it was pointless. Whatever magic bound that realm to our Mundus had been broken and I found myself suddenly tripping over a table in the great hall of Cloud Ruler Temple and stumbling to the ground. I was back.