Report 13: The Cold Even Bothered Me Anyway
I do apologize for not really being around but I have had other studies to contend with outside of ice magic which have taken up quite a bit of my time. Also it has been one heck of a slog getting through this level and with debatably very little to show for it. Save for maybe my current headgear and athame, Wintertusk has not given much after all the team ups I had to do because like 80% of these enemies are bloody ice! And like I said, Ice have it hard enough getting off decent damage without having to deal with constant shields and what not. I have completed all the quests save for the three Ice School specific spell quests and by gods those are proving to be very hard for me. I get it is to test your skills with your class, but at least make it reasonably difficult for the level that these get unlocked. Grr….
Anyway so it seems the Coven is back at it again to bring the Eternal Winter and this time they be gonna wake up ol Ymir the Ice Titan. Oh and they managed to imprison Grandmother Raven in an old bird body. We are also introduced to new Raven and bear models that weren’t seen in the previous Grizzleheim installment including some female models which is pretty neat. Though why do all of them have to be so frowny and snarly I dunno. So the good ol bear king sends us to Hrundle Fjord because they have not heard hear or hide from the outpost in some time. When you get there I’ll admit is a bit of a gruesome (well implied anyway) scene. I mean you see bears frozen solid and spooky skeletons roaming abouts. While there is a quest to thaw out some of them; others you don’t which means…brrr.
Our first task is to free Grandmother Raven from her cage and to do that we need to perform supposedly three impossible tasks: get a white feather from a raven, a claw from a bear with no name, and a tooth from a wolf that has never seen battle. Remember before when I said that each main race has their own cultures and values? Nice to see them holding continuity. Once done we are tasked with getting four golden seals from the Ice Titans four sons. And yes they are literally gold seals as in splish splash arf arf bork seals.
The four sons; Nordri, Audri, Vestri, and Sudri, are giants who rule/terrorize four quadrants of Wintertusk. Funny enough they do seem to know exactly why you’re here and aren’t necessarily looking for a fight. They like their freedom and if their father got loose it would destroy their own little tyrannical empires. However, they are not just going to hand it over to you. After all, they are bully giants. You want it, you work for it. Each giant gives you different tasks to perform before they give you their seal. Some take a bit of time to do while others are very easy (it’s their underlings that give you more trouble than the giants). A little note here; maybe I am overthinking it, but I’ve noticed that each of the four lands has something of a seasonal theme to it even if there is still pieces of snow and ice everywhere; Vestrilund (spring), Austrilund (summer), Nordrilund (fall), Sudrilund (winter). And yes the game has each area named after the giant that has territory over it with lund/land added onto it. Also each area has a unique design as opposed to just swapping color pallets and adding maybe a few extra things. This is something that is of note when looking at worlds designed after Dragonspyre. Mostly likely because they have the budget and recourses to do this now.
The final area is underneath Grandmother Raven’s Tree; Nastrond. And by gods is Nastrond a real pain in the ice cubes with just two people as many of the Elite/Boss enemies are four at a time and use a lot of wards and charms to really ruin your spells. It took me and a random person from the cue almost an hour and a few trips to the Games area to refill our potions to get through. Because unfortunately you do fight all the Giants at one time though not of their own volition. They will stun or put hexes on each other on occasion but it is still one of the most difficult fights for me at this time. And I made dead sure I got the Trogg and Runstone because there was no way in Hades I was willing to go through that dungeon again. Also somehow this triggered the Polar Bear Defeated counter in your character badges for some odd reason. I don’t know why since according to the counter it is a Polaris badge. Maybe the bears in Polaris may count towards the bear defeat count of Grizzlehiem much like how Boars count as Pigs for the Mooshu badge (and suddenly remembers the hours spent long time ago to get the Nightstalker badge…ugh).
Overall, at current Grizzlehiem is still my personal favorite place to explore even if it was extremely frustrating to try and solo. I do have to go back there for the Ice School spells, but I’m going to get a few more levels in from Celestia since I don’t know if I can get help from another player for these quests. Hopefully they are actually worth the trouble. I don’t know, I haven’t looked online but chances are at least the Snow Angel is a required thing to get other spells *sigh*. Well I guess it’s time to make a deal with an octopus witch with my voice and dive into the sea. Until next time, take to the sky my friends!
