The narrative in Avowed is pretty complex. It shares many tropes and cliches with other fantasy games, movies, and literature, but quite a few of them are successfully subverted or at least changed enough not to appear lazy or boring. That's why I won't go much into the details of the story while presenting various quests in these posts on Hive.
Let's just say that the quest I'm talking about today is the first litlle fragment of the complex main story, and that involves a mysterious cavern, a missing ambassador, and a bear gone mad.
In this screenshot, you can see me posing at the cave's entrance. It looks like the big twisted roots are trying to choke that place. I can't tell you what plant these roots belong to, if they belong to any; I mean, things in this fantasy world often aren't exactly what they seem ... which makes it somewhat similar to our ordinary world. Here as well, things can surprise you, don't you think?
This screenshot was taken when I entered. What looked like a cave at first was revealed to be a narrow canyon. I reached the cave a bit later.
The big chest shown in this picture gave me some very useful free stuff that the shops in the city sell at steep prices.
I came across a seemingly insurmountable barrier when the above screenshot was taken.
Here you can see me burning those roots that stood in my way. You can burn that stuff in quite a few ways. In this case, I used magic.
Even the darkest, most dull and gloomy environments in this game are quite spectacular, especially at night, when the mushrooms are glowing.
I encountered some dangerous giant spiders and aggressive lizard-people along the way, but the battles in the dark environment weren't worth a screenshot.
Here you can see me talking to the ambassador, or more precisely, I tried to talk, but he wasn't in the mood for conversation with the crazy bear still alive nearby.
You can see me fighting the bear in this picture. As you can see, the beast was under the influence of a fungal disease or some sort of dark magic involving fungi and their spores. The white things on the bear's body are very simillar to puffball mushrooms.
You've probably noticed that the bear's health bar is very long. Yep, it means that the fight was pretty long as well, a long and intense batlle for which I was barely prepared.
The dark brown bear in the dark environment of the cave wasn't photogenic at all, so I replayed the situation quite a few times, and took many screenshots to get this one I'm showing you in the post. Only this one looked kinda cool with the bear in a fairly interesting pose.
After killing the bear ...
... it was time for a chat with the Aedyran ambassador.
He expected me. I expected to meet him as well, but in Paradis, the city, not in a dark, humid cave almost entirely swallowed by giant roots.
The ambassador definitely wasn't in his natural habitat here in nature.
Aedyran ambassadors are soffisticated urban creatures adapted to political jungles.
Here you can see the first of the three screenshots I took on the way back to the city.
This one shows a picturesque rural house just outside the walls of Paradis.
Another scenic screnshoot that shows the city and its rugged surroundings.
Here, you can see the camp I set outside the walls, very close to the city. In camps, you can cook food and potions, repair your armor and weapons, and rest to get your health bar whole again. In the following screenshot ...
... you can admire the loading screen I had to endure for a minute or so before entering Paradis early in the morning.
And that's it, the post ends here. Hope you enjoyed it - THE END.