Darkest Dungeon EP4 : Murf Tells the Future

You shouldn’t have said anything Murf! Very obvious foreshadowing there. I knew this was going to be a tough run for the team with so many out of commission – but we need to push forward. There are glorious treasures awaiting!

I just realized I never did show the main screen entrance to the game – this just helps to set the tone even more, although I assume by now you get that. This intro really shows the importance of building a um, long-term, cohesive team. Or that the characters are just meat sticks. Somewhere in between maybe?

Bad news early – I can’t run with just three. I need to pull a high stress party member out of rest and into action – looking at my roster, Aywren has the lowest amount of stress (and by lowest, I still mean really high. Just not maxed out like the rest of them). Still, she has been phenomenal and I need  her to step up. I have to actually complete a mission to get the items I need to expand my roster size so this doesn’t happen again in the future.

I notice the Warrens has opened up! This is good because in the Ruins all I have is a ‘Medium’ length skirmish mission and a ‘Short’ exploration. Explorations have always taken a lot longer and are a lot riskier in my experience. Thankfully, the Warrens is a ‘Short’ skirmish so I grab my team and head there. I have never done the ‘Weald’ although I see it is also open now too. Lots of options, but short on bench strength.

Sounds like a nice place to vacation! There are a lot of pig-folk in here and I get ready for the stank.

Aywren’s composure doesn’t last long. She quickly becomes terrified and lets me know at every turn. Even more frustrating is that she keeps swapping spots out from the front, wasting turns and attacks, and sometimes just outright refusing to do anything. She is a different kind of anchor this time. More like cement shoes.

And Tesh finds her fear addictive and falls into it as well. Between the two scaredy pants fighting on who ISN’T going to fight, and who is retreating and being big wimps I am about to pull my hair out. I have no clue what “MNAHN’T GOF’NN” means but I but it isn’t a brave battle cry. Thankfully, Murf and WelshTroll are being solid party members, as always.

Selfish? Murf? Say it ain’t so! Every fight he is taking turns off because he wants to preserve experiments. This can’t get any worse, right?

….right.

Here we are in the last room, in the last fight, and hurting bad. It’ wouldn’t have gone quite so bad if Tesh and Aywren weren’t so scared, and Murf wasn’t so self consumed. This prayer of WelshTroll’s is the only thing standing between life and death.

And it doesn’t work. Here, Murf and Aywren are BOTH one shot away from dying, and it isn’t my turn (so I can’t retreat). See Murf? That is the last you will see of him. Next attack is an AOE and Aywren passes the ‘Death’s Door’ check and Murf fails. First blogger down. I get to retreat and save the others though, for a small solace. No upgrade rewards though.

Cue Yorick style soliloquy for the fallen Murf. Nice skull.

Here on the return to Hamlet screen you see the result of the other’s rest – Syp was caught cheating while gambling and can no longer gamble to unwind. Syncaine and Isey lose some bad traits with their stress levels down.

A quick visit to the graveyard shows Murf, all alone. Thankfully (er..) that will no doubt change soon.

Now that we all have a good feel for the way these games play out I am not going to go frame by frame on each mission – I am going to speed it up a little bit. I’ll report back on deaths and new recruits and when new things crop up (such as boss fights!) but I’ll need to really gear down and get to work with this crew. The fate of BlogNation is in my hands, and I think I need to push them a bit harder for results!

Sorry Murf. We’ll miss you.