I should have expected this.

I had just begun my trek through the desert landscape of North Teora. The first battleground, Caravan Trail, is filled with new, interesting monsters. Most notably, a roach with a fun move. We’re warned about these buggers, with Kyrie telling us to hide behind the rocks and ruins. If we don’t, we can trigger their special attack where they charge ALLLLLL the way across the path, doing massive damage. Otherwise, they’re quite manageable in one-on-one combat. The knock off flans are what you need to worry about here.

Our next location is the city of Oldebzar. As we enter, we see the naked civilians being killed by a group of bandits led by Mercier. But how? Once again, we do battle with him. The goal is to kill Mercier, although he doesn’t die in the end. This battle has its hangups, but focusing on the target isn’t too hard. Keep a healer with your two heavy hitters and have your secondary squad run interference to keep the mage at bay, and it should be fine. Afterwards, Mercier explodes a smoke bomb and runs away. We see a glimpse of Reiner giving chase while Kyrie fills Anadine in on the impromptu plan of stalking Mercier back to his lair to find out who’s in charge and how he got away from the Arbiter we left him with, Dolman. Time passes as Kyrie is arguing with a man trying to fleece those who’ve just been robbed. We learn that Anadine’s mom, Sylvia, was the mentor of Kyrie. The next scene involves Reiner returning with the location of Mercier's whereabouts. This gives us an option. We can continue to the temple to fulfill our mission or head to the Resting Stones, where Mercier is. I, obviously, choose to kill the bandit.

Heading south, we stumble upon Mercier and Dolman having a conversation where they’re clearly in cahoots. We know many Arbiters are corrupt, but what’s really odd is Septimus, an Immortal, is leading the charge. Septimus is the one I said was evil in blog one, so I'm not too surprised to see him. He’s talking about killing people and making sure his plan goes well. When we show up, he teleports away and tells his subordinates to kill us or else he’ll kill them. We see Bzaro has been taken captive and, in the commotion of us showing up, breaks free and joins us.

This has the typical problems I always have with this game: too much healing and status effects. What’s most annoying is Dolman has the Critical: Rebirth skill. Every time I have him near death, he automatically casts re-arise on him. We have to kill him four times! This isn’t a terribly hard fight, but it might be the most annoying. It taught me to use items, so I’ve given up on my hoarding.

With two of our enemies dead, we wonder what to do next. Should we inform Quintus or continue the pilgrimage? We were told to prioritize the pilgrimage, and thus we do. We don’t want Bzaro returning alone, knowing we’re targets of something higher than us, so he joins up. Bzaro is a customizable monster type character. He learns new classes by killing monsters and...emulating?...them.

I’m on a roll, so I keep playing. I advance further to the temple and do a craggy battlefield at Irizk’tara Gorge. It’s filled with giants, wannabe flans, and a special undead mob. The Cadaver is holding a letter that you get if you kill it with Collect Pelt. Sadly, Drew Carmello killed it with a counter, so whoops. Had I felled it correctly, I would have taken a step towards unlocking Reiner’s special class, the Spymaster. I’ll try again tomorrow.

I didn’t want to venture to the temple tonight, so I tried my hand at the arena. I rage quit round one again. But I came back! They may be masters of dodging, but I’m stubborn! I got my vengeance when I won! Round one was the hardest, and it got easier from there. Round three was one of the easiest fights in the game. For my rewards, I got new outfits. I change into the clothes because they're cool. I don’t like the hat, though.

I shall finish this leg of the pilgrimage tomorrow!

There was an optional scene at Oldebzar where we’re thanked for saving the town. We’re asked to take a new outfit from the outfitter, and our three main characters play dress up, ending with new armor for Reiner. I don't know how far into the game we are, but already, we see so much of the world is tainted. How much of it will we cleanse? At some point tonight, there was a second optional scene that further explains Yates and Reiner. Reiner took Alica to see Yates to see if he could heal him. He could not. Rather than accept the inevitability of death, Yates turned Alicia into a zombie. This, rightfully so, enraged Reiner, and he never forgave the mad doctor. I'm glad I don't use him...