The Shrieker

"Deep within the heart of the Weald stands a gigantic tree that towers above all other trees, and hidden within the gnarled and twisted branches of this tree is the Shrieker's Nest. Like the Noble Raven depicted on our family’s Coat of Arms, this poor creature has seen better days, for the corruption that plagues the estate has twisted this feathered bird into a feathered fiend. Despite being corrupted, this feathered fiend is still a Raven at heart and has an eye for everything that glitters and shines. The Nest of the Shrieker is decorated with all the shiny and glittering Trinkets it has stolen from our Trinkets Chest or taken from the dead bodies of our fallen heroes. Reclaiming these items will not be easy, for the Shrieker will defend its Nest from any intruders. But if Shrieker feels that it is not worth its life to protect his hoard of treasures, it will abandon its nest and escape to live another day, free to steal more of our rare and valuable Trinkets."

Behaviour
The Shrieker is an Eldritch/Beast Event Boss found in the Weald fought alongside its Nest, both of which take up two slots. The Shrieker has attacks that move it forward and backwards, meaning you're going to need to switch between attacking the front and back lines.

On the Shrieker's last turn during Round 4, it will use Shrieking Flight, dealing 50 stress damage to all heroes before flying away, ending the battle.

Appearance
The Shrieker can appear following 3 different events:


 * During A Thief in the Night event, when the Shrieker steals 8 random trinkets from the trinket inventory. This event can happen after week 42, appears only once and will be available on the map until you clear it;
 * After you lose 8 trinkets (with dead heroes or in town activities), you can fight the Shrieker to get your lost treasures back. This event will stay on the map until you clear it;
 * During the Shrieker's Prize event, where you can hunt the Shrieker in order to get one of its unique trinkets. This event can happen after week 15. It will expire if you don't clear it on the same week when it appears, but it can happen multiple times during the campaign, even if you already acquired all Shrieker trinkets (in this case the quest reward panel will be empty).

Strategy
You only have four turns to kill the Shrieker before it flees. If it does, though, there is no penalty other than the Stress your heroes accumulated, and the quest will still be marked as completed. If you're here to reclaim your lost Trinkets or to earn a Shrieker's Prize, you can simply focus on survival until these four turns have passed. Leper is the best hero to do this, as sending just one with trinkets that grant protection such as Heavy Boots and Barristan's Head and combining them with Withstand and Holy Water is a strategy that will always works unless the Leper isn't very leveled.

Forget about buying most of the supply items, as any quest for the Shrieker drops right into the fight then ends afterwards. Your light is already at 100 unless you douse it yourself. There's thus no reason to buy food, torches, shovels, etc. You do however want bandages, herbs, and holy water for the fight. You must also decide if you want to kill the bird, or smash its nest. You get no reward for the former, as the only thing the game checks for quirks is if you succeed on the mission or not, while the reward for doing the latter is a lot of valuable treasure. Doing both is probably not going to work due to the strict time limit. Regardless of your choice, be prepared to hit slots 1 or 2 + 3 or 4, as the Shrieker + nest both take up 2 slots, and will regularly switch sides. A class that can't always hit both sides (such as the Leper) is not ideal to bring.

The Shrieker has 3 actions per round, making any debuffs applied to it mostly worthless. It's quite vulnerable to bleeds though, while being resistant to blight. It has 0 prot, relying instead on an incredibly high dodge to avoid attacks. Since you can't rely on debuffs, consider buffing your own party's accuracy. The Man At Arms and Jester excel for this. They can buff the entire party's accuracy, making this dodgy bird easier to hit. Another good choice is the Houndmaster, which not only gets a damage bonus vs beast, but also obtains an accuracy bonus from dog treats. If you have an Occultist, he too gets a damage bonus since the Shrieker is also eldritch. The Hellion is another solid choice, bringing a bleed attack that can hit the Shrieker in either position. But these choices will struggle to hit without buffs. Another strategy to consider is riposte. It is constantly triggered by the Shrieker's numerous attacks.

With its 3 turns per round, the Shrieker will barrage your party with attacks. To keep up the pace and win under the strict time limit, use items to counter its attacks. It will bleed and debuff your party, so bandages, herbs, and holy water are highly recommended. It also inflicts stress, but the fight is bound to end before this is of any concern. If you brought the necessary items, healing is less important, and will allow more turns to attack. However, do bear in mind that the Shrieker has a high critical rate and can bring a character with low max HP to 0 health in a single attack that can bestow bleeding.

If you're focusing on destroying the nest, it's a much simpler task. It's immune to debuffs and DoTs so bring heroes with high damage output. Mark synergies are also great if you have enough damage bonuses. A healer is also a viable choice in this setup just to help with enduring the Shrieker's harassment.

Preferred Heroes

 * Hellion - Great raw damage to either the front or back for smashing the Nest.
 * Abomination - Once transformed, he can easily hit either target regardless of their position. Mind his Stress levels.
 * Houndmaster - No better place to expend your Dog Treats. Damage bonus against Beasts is fantastic if you want to kill the Shrieker.
 * Highwayman - The Shrieker's many attacks expose it to frequent Riposte damage.

Reasonable Choices

 * Leper - Great raw damage for Nest-smashing, but poor accuracy makes it hard to hit the Shrieker.
 * Occultist - His Vulnerability Hex provides a nice Dodge reduction debuff against the Shrieker, though it runs out quickly. His bonus damage against the Eldritch helps.
 * Jester - Manage the party's Stress so that they're not out of commission once you return to the Hamlet. Buff their Accuracy if you want to actually hit the Shrieker.
 * Man-At-Arms - Good Stress reduction buff for the fight, but it's not ideal under the time limit.
 * Arbalest/Musketeer - If you've marked the Nest she can do tremendous damage to it and destroy it within the time limit. But her Mark and DODGE debuff run out quickly on the Shrieker so she's not as effective there.

Discouraged Heroes

 * Plague Doctor - Both targets are resistant to Blight, relegating her to giving support and some Bleeds.
 * Antiquarian - The quest is just the Shrieker fight; no curios to be found here. A Dodge buff can be good for survival, but otherwise there is little reason for taking her along.

Shrieker Trinkets
Sometimes the event Shrieker's Prize will be showing. This will allow the player to hunt down The Shrieker for a chance to aquire a Shrieker Trinket.

Corvid's Quirks
Heroes who survive the battle with The Shrieker may contract one of several new quirks. Successfully killing The Shrieker increases the chance to get a positive quirk instead of a negative quirk, but all quirks are possible to contract regardless of the outcome of the fight. The following list is of the discovered quirks and their effects:

Abilities
Apprentice =

Veteran =

Champion =

* Only used as its last action during round 4. Also cannot be riposted, so isn't a last chance to get the kill.

Trivia

 * While the battle itself remains unchanged for the quest you fight it in, the music for the battle does not. If the quest is Shrieker's Prize, it is the Mournweald Encounter, the normal battle music for the Weald. If the quest is A Thief in the Night or recovering lost trinkets from fallen heroes, the music is Town in Chaos, the battle music from Wolves at the Door.
 * When The Shrieker "flees", the quest condition about killing 1 Shrieker is fulfilled; Whilst from a mechanical standpoint, the Shrieker is “killing” itself, the implication that simply getting foes to flee from active combat qualifies as “killing” them.
 * There are Apprentice and Veteran version of this boss. They are called Callous Shrieker and Cretinous Shrieker, respectively. While Shrieker's Prize will always feature the Champion Version of the Boss, A Thief in the Night may feature the Apprentice or Veteran version of the boss, depending on the highest rarity of Trinket that was lost on the battlefield.
 * This is the only encounter in the game that appears in the first room. The player can still camp in the first room in other expeditions after exploring a minimum of one room and coming back, then getting ambushed in the night.
 * The term "Corvid" refers to the bird family of Corvidae, defined as "a large and widely distributed family of typical passerine ("perching") birds having a stout moderately long cultrate ("sharp and pointed") bill and including the ravens, crows, choughs, magpies, and jays" (ref)
 * The Shrieker's attacks are programmed to move him forward and back 4 positions. This is despite only requiring to move 3 positions to always end up in the first and fourth positions after executing each move respectively.
 * Using a single Grave Robber, it was possible to spam Shadow Fade to remain Stealthed until the Shrieker flies off. The Shrieker was unable to target anyone Stealthed, and thus the Grave Robber would remain untouched throughout the fight. This exploit has been patched out in December 2018, as the Shrieker's attacks have been given the ability to ignore Stealth.
 * Unequiped trinkets lost after a party wipe won't be retrieved by the Shrieker. Every trinket equipped by the hero will add to the eight lost trinkets total, but those on your inventory at the time of the party wipe are lost forever.