Part 42: Devilsblood Ascent

Update 42: Devilsblood Ascent



Welcome back! Last time we went through a lot of dialogue with the Kawa Elders. There we learned that the Relics aren’t just arbitrary dark magic artifacts, but a way to keep the fearsome beast known as The Maw in its bindings. With Sigil just ahead of us, we’re now going towards the Temple ourselves.







I’ve never seen their like before. Best be on guard.
I’m not thrilled about all this lava either. I doubt anyone-or any *thing* -could survive a swim in that.

And yes, that’s the game telling us that lava is instant death to anything without the floating movement type.




This time we have a pretty standard defeat all foes fight. The map itself is pretty vertical, so having good movement or range will be very helpful.



To that end, I’m bringing Anadine, Reiner, and Azure (all of whom can teleport and ignore elevation), Hannah (who can jump well and is mobile enough), Bobby (who doesn’t need to be near enemies to hurt them), and Selina who can be a solid front liner with Kyrie.




Up against us are a solid variety of enemies, including a bunch of a new type called the Helhund (the Xolotl is a max-tier Helhund). The ones with no hair or fire are just basic Helhunds and aren’t too bad. They get Pick Off (Katja’s ability that does extra damage to isolated targets) and a somewhat strong AOE fire attack. The upgraded versions are where it gets interesting. The first upgrade gives them pounce as a counter, which lets them hit your squishy mages or rangers, a copy of the vessel’s Avernaal summon for strong ranged damage, and then the Eruptor passive from the sorcerer, which builds up a damage boost for every turn that they don’t do damage. And finally, the fully upgraded version, the Xolotl, gets access to Quetzalcoatl, the Impetus speed-boosting passive, and can hover. Overall, they’re a really nasty enemy type, especially when you start running into multiple upgraded ones at once, since it’s very difficult to stop them from doing very heavy damage on the first few rounds of combat. If you can weather the storm, things get easier, but that’s usually a very big “if” for me.

In addition to the Helhunds, we have a Vulcan Bulldrake, ready to annoy people from up high, a Bzil, and two slightly hidden Pekites to add a few more things to worry about.





Reiner starts the fight off by plinking one of the Helhunds to get it jump to over to me.



Azure does another chunk of damage to it before I realize that this one does not float.




So into the lava it goes!



Kyrie moves up and takes a good chunk out of another Helhund, but doesn’t quite kill it.



The Bzil and a few more enemies close in.



After some more weakening from Hannah, Selina just whacks the nearby Helhund for the kill.



Though she does get tongue-slapped for her efforts.



The Pekite takes a decent chunk out of Azure with a focus fired spell.




The enemies also spam Avernaal a few times. At least I can actually show the summon off now that the name isn’t blocking the icon.



This Helhund does about ½ of Anadine’s remaining health and cripples her, which is annoying because she’d otherwise have been in prime rampaging position. Instead she just uses spread pain to cure herself and cripple the Helhund instead.



Meanwhile, up top the Bulldrake goes to sleep. I think the enemies here deal enough burst damage that I don’t want to risk getting hit by his AOE too many times.




Kyrie and Hannah coordinate to kill the pinned-in Helhund



And Selina takes the chance to heal the front liners back up a bit.



And now that it’s Bobby’s turn, it’s time to really put some hurt down. Everything but the earth Pekite and the Bzil are highly weak to water damage, so this does quite a bit to everything. I’d also positioned him so that only one of the Helhunds could pounce over, so he doesn’t get hurt too badly in retaliation.



Soon afterwards, Reiner uses multishot to clean up another Helhund and weaken the Bzil.



Who is then taken out by Azure without much trouble.



The very much awake Bulldrake pops down into the middle of everyone and does a sizable amount of fire damage to the group.



Some shots from Kyrie and Anadine nearly take him down.



Selina takes out the last remaining Helhund with an infused edge combo.



And Bobby takes out the remaining 2 fire enemies with another Hailstorm. This leaves just the earth Pekite, who’s silenced and effectively harmless.



Which gives me time to have Reiner pop down to the corner and grab the treasure chest. This gets me 2 dormant crystals, which are useful for a number of crafting things including upgrading my mana stone consumable.



With that grabbed, it’s time for Selina to finish the Pekite off.



Selina deservedly gets MVP and I had no downs. Overall a pretty successful mission that wasn’t too hard.



After the fight, the group congregates just outside of the seal for the final Temple.



I don’t know what their intent was in draining the Relics, but whatever they’re doing, it’s dangerous and a threat to the Council. We’re going to put a stop to them once and for all. Everyone, be ready for the fight of your lives. Between Raife, Grim Eye, and tehir minions, these are going to be the strongest enemies we’ve ever faced.




She then approaches the seal which flares up before fading out to nothing.



And then we’re back on the world map, with the final Temple right in front of us. Next time, we’ll finally catch up to the leaders of Sigil and will hopefully take them down for good!