Welcome back. It’s been a while since the last installment of our ventures into Darkest Dungeon, but I made a solemn vow to see this game through. I am going to make it through this game if it kills me.

Last time, we finally got a taste of the Darkest Dungeon itself and I got the horrible, horrible taste of defeat. I lost my best heroes, some of my best trinkets, and my will to keep going on. But nevertheless, I must persist. How do we bounce back from this horrible failure?

Well, we first bounce back by bringing somebody out from the depths of hell. I was so despondent from getting so horribly owned last time that I completely skipped over the fact that I had the chance to revive someone from the dead. Hynde the Antiquarian! Easy skip, sorry. Fritz the Houndmaster – sorry, I love you and your dog, but I cannot. For you see, the third choice was Heuze, the Grave Robber that stood her ground against the Shambling Horror. Who am I to not bring her back to life? She stood Vigorous in the face of evil and nearly killed it, and I think for that she deserves to come back and perhaps have a shot at vengeance.

I decided to start things off taking an apprentice mission in the Weald looking for medicine bags. Besides bringing the Weald closer to summoning a new boss, it’d also give us free health care if I succeeded and you can’t say no to free health care. Ozzy the Flagellant led the front while new recruit Esmee the Arbalest headed the back. Touchet the Vestal was chosen as the resident healer, while another new recruit, Faustin the Houndmaster was also brought along as my personal apology for not bringing Fritz back to life.

But I then saw that I had another issue: I had no money. I put all my eggs in one basket for the Darkest Dungeon mission, which was a mistake because even if I survived, I would not have had much money to come back with, anyway. But thankfully, I have somebody with me on this journey, friend of the site and partner of me, Infomantis. And they pointed out that I was real bad about hoarding trinkets, so I sold a bunch of them to make supply buying money. Please don’t be like me and get rid of your surplus stuff, folks.

Now freshly geared up, the crew of rookies went on. The mission started off pretty okay, with the first two medicine bags being found immediately. Unfortunately for Esmee, she had a pretty bad first day because she was bullied into becoming Fearful. Thankfully, the rest of the quest didn’t last that long so she could just safely cower in the back all she wanted.

Aubert the Hellion and Gary the Abomination were immediately sentenced to get free quirk surgery. As they were, the Weald inched ever so closer to getting a boss. However, one more mission was needed to push it over the edge. While Esmee was sent off to get some stress relief, Touchet and Faustin stuck behind to join Vats the Jester and Poignant the Antiquarian to go out on another outing into the Weald.

This quest was uneventful, but damn did Poignant make bank, and damn did they have a good time petting Faustin’s dog. That quest did activate Sunshine in the Thicket, giving extra damage in the Weald. And oh hey look, new Weald boss just dropped. The ultimate form of hag, the Hag Witch has arrived. Since I got so thoroughly owned by the Darkest Dungeon, I need to beat a Champion level boss to raise my spirits.

Aubert, fresh out of getting a Corvid’s Eye surgically installed, led the pack along with Cairon the Leper. Boteler the Vestal was today’s chosen healer and Gary, with his fear of humans freshly removed, rounded out the pack.

The quest started out alright. Everyone was riding high off of the damage boost… and then they ran into a giant//witch combo. The witch placed a mark on Boteler, which the giant immediately took advantage of. The heroes were disoriented because the giant’s confusion spores scrambled the party, and in that panic, the giant sent Boteler to Death’s Door in one strike.

Unfortunately, Boteler got death blowed by the next immediate attack. Unfortunately, continuing on with the quest seemed to be a lost cause – there were a few more rooms before the boss to begin with, and there’s no way I could fight that without a healer on board. So, even with the nice damage buff going around, I decided to cut my losses and leave.

We were back to square one, and I no longer had that nice Weald buff. I should keep Sunshine in the Thicket in mind for the future if I ever want to have another go at that boss, but for now, fuck that. Everyone’s stressed out from the failed expedition, and I spent a whole bunch of money prepping everyone, so I’m back to low funds.

I looked at the map and figured that I should go out to the Ruins, since that’s the least explored out of the game’s normal maps. I gotta accomplish something this session. Unfortunately, my list of rookies that’d be good for the Ruins was awfully low or were mainly backline fighters, so I pulled two more people off the stage coach. Esmee and Tree the Occultist were to be joined by new friends Picard the Plague Doctor and Brody the Flagellant. Well, Flagellants also seem as bad at skeletons as Houndmasters, but I like having Flagellants, so welcome aboard Brody. It was time to go to the Ruins…

….Or at least I wanted to go to the Ruins. So, fun weird thing about Darkest Dungeon is if you leave the mission screen to fool around in the hamlet some more, it reselects your choice when you go back for no real good reason. And so, I went to the Warrens by complete accident. The mission was uneventful besides that screw-up. Well, Picard actually sucked pretty fucking bad at fighting and got Death’s Doored at some point, which managed to top Esmee in terms of having a bad first day.

But man, the night was running long, so I decided to end things off with a short proper mission into the Ruins with some of the estate’s veterans. Pippin the Shieldbreaker needed to get some more action in the field, and I immediately spent all the money I made on the last quest getting her skills up to snuff. Cleri the Grave Robber and Tree the Occultist were made to come along to, and well, I needed money, so the freshly promoted Poignant had to go out with them.

Poignant, as always, was on that treasure hunting grindset. In the meantime, Tree was getting owned by stress dealers targeting him, and it kinda didn’t help that he wasn’t mentally healthy to begin with. The guy wound up becoming a Masochist, which seems to come in the form of him being possessed by whatever eldritch entity he invokes for his powers, but ehh, it was a short and simple outing, so it didn’t end up being too much of a bother. He can just shake off the demonic possession later.

And… that was how I decided to end this play session. Not a lot was achieved, not much noteworthy happened. Honestly, the hag expedition getting killed off midway through stopped the momentum. That said, it was better to have walked away with people alive than having yet another squad wipe.

Next time… maybe another go at the Hag Witch? Everything’s to be determined, to be honest.