Introduction

The adventure in Constantinople ended with the Twisted Antiprism safe in the hands of the Lady in Vermillion Veil. However, nothing particular of note was learned about the Holy Ancestor. Still, the cell felt they were closer than ever to learning the truth. The team decided they would take some time to gather their bearings before setting out again. This short rest would be more important than ever, given how much they sensed they were nearing the very end of their quest together.

Summary so far

Let’s take a moment before very likely heading to Tunguska to discuss what’s happened so far.

Currently, we are at 25 time. We have completed Riddles in Rain, On Thin Ice, Shades of Suffering, Dogs of War, and Dealings in the Dark. With Constantinople checked off, we have visited 6 out of the 7 required Asian cities for the challenge, and we are guaranteed to finish them all when we hit Tunguska! Hooray! But we’re also certainly going to Kabul next, so we’ll likely finish at 8 out of the 7 required. In short, we’re guaranteed to finish this special requirement of our campaign. This constraint was actually really neat, and I enjoyed being pushed to consider a creative route through this campaign.

As far as keys go at the moment, here’s what we got:

The Eye of Ravens: Kōhaku Narukami

The Light of Pharos: The Claret Knight

The Sable Glass: Thorne

The Twisted Antiprism: Ece Şahin

The Shade Reaper: The Red-Gloved Man

The cell has currently earned 31 XP, although thanks to Unspeakable Oath triggering last scenario, Nathaniel has 29 XP. Seven of that XP is currently unspent for the team, five for Nathaniel. Lily’s Down the Rabbit Hole has netted her 8 bonus XP so far, giving her 39 XP worth of cards in her deck at the moment.

Also, since we passed 30 XP earned by the team, Lily can now get her third discipline! I’m going to take the Willpower one and, of course, I’ll add another Burden of Destiny to my deck.

As far as trauma goes, all the investigators have 1 physical trauma except for Nathaniel who has 2 physical trauma and 1 mental trauma. This is because he got defeated a couple times while trying to handle some enemies. Noble sacrifices both times – although I maintain one of those was rather preventable.

The chaos bag has 4 tablets, 0 elder things, and 3 cultists. Everyone also recently added the Paradimensional Understanding weakness to their deck.

All that being established, it’s time to embark!

Embarking

First, we’re going to go to Kabul, arriving at time #26 because I want to take a little gamble to see if I can get The Shade Reaper back. We also officially hit 7 Asian cities off of coming here, so the truth of the Holy Ancestor will for sure be discovered! I’ll save the resolution of that for the end of the campaign. Anyway, unsurprisingly, we hit a decoy. We’re now up to one wrong lead here.

Next, I believe if we swing over and visit Nairobi (which is weirdly only 1 time away) we can get a great reward since we’ve helped so many Red Coterie members so far. We arrive at Time #27, and we have recorded three things for Tuwile Masai – the cell aided the knight, the cell made a deal with Thorne, and Ece trusts the cell. All this means that Tuwile Masai is on our side. We also earn another experience and we gain The Bale Engine. After reading what this thing does, I think the only person who cares about this on our team is Kōhaku. Kōhaku would definitely use this on Living Ink. Other than that, no one really cares, except maybe Lily’s Enchanted Blade but I’ve barely ever cared about running out of charges there. I also earned another experience point, which brings my total unspent experience to 8, or 6 for Nathaniel. We add one more time taking us to Time #28 and we continue.

At this point, I can try to head straight for Tunguska and arrive before Time #35, or I can keep trying to recover the Shade Reaper. Honestly, I think I’ll keep trying for the Shade Reaper. I move 3 more spaces to get to San Juan, which brings me to Time #31. We fail to get it again, so off to Quito, where we arrive at Time #32, and I fail for the third time in a row.

Unfortunately this means I have to abandon getting the Shade Reaper back because at this point, I can’t really do anything else on this map. I would arrive at Reykjavik on Time #35 which sends me directly to Tunguska and adds a Cultist. I can also arrive at Tunguska at Time #35, which weirdly also sounds me to Tunguska and adds a Cultist.

The only thing I could do that could maybe be of some use to my team is to play another scenario. So I guess that before taking a forced trip to Tunguska, the team will take an unexpected visit to Buenos Aires and play Sanguine Shadows.

Upgrades

With another scenario before Tunguska on the horizon and plenty of XP to spend on new cards, here’s how all the changes went.

Kōhaku will do the following:

+3 XP for Living Ink (Macabre Depiction), +1 The Skeleton Key, +1 Close the Circle, -2 Sword Cane

Skeleton Key is going to be a huge boon for the team because this is Scarlet Keys, where all players test against the shroud frequently. Close the Circle is also a great pickup because Kōhaku’s deck is getting to the point where he can quite easily have 3 different classes in his play area, and after another scenario of upgrading, we could get that even higher. We also have Enraptured in our deck, which could place more charges on Close the Circle. Lastly, the Living Ink upgrade will let us add a charge every time once per round if we draw a symbol token, which is really easy to do because of all the blesses and curses, the 4 Cultists, and the 4 Tablets in the bag. Plus, we often have bonus actions. Overall, I expect this upgrade means we are going to see our Living Ink sticking around for a super long time. I decided to ditch my Sword Canes, which is a risky choice, but given how much damage the team is sporting, I feel like they are no longer mandatory.

Nathaniel will do the following changes:

+1 Sacred Covenant, +2 Vicious Blow level 2, -2 Vicious Blow level 0

Nathaniel had 6 XP to work with and most of his deck is already fine. I gave him a Sacred Covenant so he can further help with keeping the bag blessed. The upgraded Vicious Blows help him get even more damage out. I could have done a lot of things here, and I don’t think this is the most thrilling choice possible, but I am confident it will be helpful.

Next, Minh will do the following:

+1 Higher Education level 3, +1 Eye of Truth, -1 Manual Dexterity

Higher Education level 3 is going to be awesome so that my Dark Horse Minh can have another option for dumping out all her resources. It’s not that hard for Minh to have 5 or more cards in hand, so I expect this to be available to use almost all the time. Finally, Eye of Truth just seems like it’ll be fun to use, especially because I can potentially pull it off of Ancestral Knowledge. There are plenty of tough treacheries in this campaign, so this can help everyone out.

Finally, Lily will do the following:

+3 XP for Hunter’s Armor (Hexdrinker), +1 Flurry of Blows, -1 Blood Pact

As I said before, Lily is running out of things to upgrade. We add 3 more XP to Hunter’s Armor, which takes us to 9 XP spent on this card. Adding the Hexdrinker will allow her to draw a card when damage or horror from a treachery is placed on this card. I went this direction because most of the damage and horror Hunter’s Armor was taking did in fact come from treacheries. Next, I decided to pick up Flurry of Blows for 6 XP, since my deck is largely centered around playing Enchanted Blade or Blessed Blade. In the right situation, Flurry of Blows can get me huge value, so I figure the additional XP point spent is well worth it.

Conclusion

Alright, that’s everything to update for now. Up next, it’ll be a visit to Buenos Aires in Sanguine Shadows and then straight to the big finale in Tunguska! We’re closing in on the end, so once again, thanks for reading.