Passage to ashes, butts to dust...

Completed 2 of the main quest lines today, got a new team member, and figured a few more tings about the game.

First, the creepy feeling I was getting from that small town turned out to be right, and the whole place was filled with dragon worshiping cultists. So as I made my way through the catacombs and caves of a frozen mountain I had to face off against heavily armed cultists, baby dragons the size of large dogs, and wyverns the size of horses. After facing off against the head of the cult (and killing him) I came to a clearing where the dragon they worshiped could be seem on a high ledge, and off to the side there was a small gong. I figure I would hit the gong and see what happens, The dragon then came down and quickly killed my party.

Turns out full grown dragons are pretty tough. After several attempts with ever part member I could try, I decided that I was not ready from full dragon slaying yet and just let the thing be.

After that I had to pass through 4 tests in order to get the magical ashes to cure the father of that possessed kid. The first was a set of simple riddles, then I had to face the 1 person I had wrong so far in the game (and he even forgave me), next fight ghost copies of my party, a finally walk through fire in my skivvies (weird). At last I got the ashes and was able to heal the earl (think that was his rank), and he promised me to lend his forces to stopping the main evil dragon and would also work towards getting rid of the putz.

After that I went to the mage's tower and discovered they were having quite the demon problem. So of course I volunteered to help them out, and early on I gained another mage in my party. Near the top of the tower my character was trapped in a weird dream world that was mainly focused on colecting and using difrent forms to acces difrent areas (quite metroidvania). The most intresting part was having access to all the magic spells for each form, which I rather missed once it was over. Then I want on to the big boss fight and saved the mages, in return the promised to help aginst the evil dragon too.

While playing I finally figured out how to give gifts to my party members, up until now I had been hording them thinking it was some conversation triggered thing (like giving things to NPCs). Also I found out that the party members that are not in my team still gain experience and go up levels (slower than my main part though), which means even if i neglect them the won't be useless. Then during the boss fight in the mage tower I was suppose to use a magic book I got earlier, but it wasn't until m second attempt that I found where in the radial menu the book even was. The game is great, but it's really lacking in explanation as to haw to do things.

Tomorrow I'll be going off to see the dwarfs and find out what huge quest I have to go on before I get their help against the evil dragon...