Much Less Fucking Around, and Some Unpleasant Finding Out

Twitter thread from 5/14/2021, in which Alarrah discovers intrigue surrounding a Redguard fugitive hiding out in Whiterun, and has to choose between helping her or her pursuers.

Tonight’s Episode of Alarrah the Dragonborn: Much Less Fucking Around, and Some Unpleasant Finding Out

Lot more organization to tonight’s Skyrim efforts, as I worked on concluding the quest called In My Time of Need, in which a Redguard woman is pursued by possible assassins.

12:24 AM · May 14, 2021

1. Let us assume that the narrative picks up from that last visit to Warmaiden’s and making the bracers, shall we? 😉

12:25 AM · May 14, 2021

All of that previous unpleasantness with getting slain by random mages, by the Whiterun guards, OR by a very big, very pissed off mammoth? Never happened. Nope. Not a bit of it.

12:25 AM · May 14, 2021

2. Instead, our heroines doublecheck our various bits of inventory, and go sell a few things to Belethor. Belethor: “EVERYTHING’s for sale, my friend! If I had a sister, I’d sell her!” Alarrah (surreptitiously quaffing a potion of Haggling): “What was that you were saying?”

12:26 AM · May 14, 2021

3. Ditched the bits of the last dragon I killed with Belethor and practically wiped out his gold. Also went up to Dragonsreach to sell the wizard various interesting bits of jewelry, and buy some spellbooks off of him. Including, notably, Magelight. Strongly recommended by Paul.

12:27 AM · May 14, 2021

4. And while I was up there, finally found the dungeon where that Alik’r prisoner was held and had a word with him to find out what to do next.

12:27 AM · May 14, 2021

After I paid the fine, the prisoner pointed me to a notorious smugglers’ hideout west of Whiterun–with dire warnings that I’d never ever make it out alive. “Yeah yeah yeah is the place crawling with draugr? No? Lyds can clear it in her sleep.”

12:28 AM · May 14, 2021

5. Off we go to try to find the smugglers’ hideout! Harvested a bunch of things on the way and also shot one elk and one deer, with some damn fine shooting if I do say so myself.

12:29 AM · May 14, 2021

6. Let it also be noted that I got some really nice screencaps of a sunset vista and auroras. Damn, Skyrim is pretty. I’ll probably say that a lot more as this entire adventure proceeds. But well, so far it’s continuing to be true!

12:29 AM · May 14, 2021

7. Saw a giant slowly tromping by in the distance. We did NOT go anywhere near it.

Alarrah: <looks spooked>
Lydia: You look like something just walked over your grave.
Alarrah: Something… very large. Yeah, let’s not go over there. Let’s go this way instead, why don’t we.

12:30 AM · May 14, 2021

8. As it happened, “this way instead” was actually the way we wanted to go. We left the road at this point and cut out cross country.

12:30 AM · May 14, 2021

Up to this point I think Lyds had taken out at least one wolf and one sabre cat before they jumped me, and we encountered a couple more wolves, another sabre cat, and a skeever before we finally found the place we were looking for. And OH YEAH: more Nirnroot!

12:31 AM · May 14, 2021

9. First bandit saw us coming as we came across Smugglers’ Den, but he didn’t get past “Well isn’t THIS—” before Lydia dropped him to the dirt.

12:32 AM · May 14, 2021

10. Once we slipped in, I tried the “inch down the corridor with the bow and arrow ready” strategy that we’d used in the vampire barrow, and that was super helpful this time too. Took out multiple bandits from a distance. Got my Archery bumped up another point for the trouble.

12:33 AM · May 14, 2021

11. Sneak went up another point too, AND I leveled up to 12.

12. Not too complex a warren to hunt through, certainly nothing on the order of Ustengrav. I had maybe three chambers to hunt through before I found a waterway that actually led to the final room.

12:33 AM · May 14, 2021

13. And there, as I was about to edge out from under the waterfall, my quarry, Kematu, hailed me and initiated a very interesting little conversation about the woman who’d engaged me to come take him out.

12:34 AM · May 14, 2021

14. Turns out Kematu’s side of the story is “this woman betrayed her people and is wanted for justice”. This, combined with Kematu making his remaining men stand down and not attack us, was enough to make a very grumpy Dragonborn back off and listen to what he had to say.

12:38 AM · May 14, 2021

15. Which was what I expected out of this quest, really; Paul had dropped me hints about it.. The plot gives you nothing to go on to say whether Saadia or Kematu is telling the truth. You must go with your own judgment on how to proceed.

12:39 AM · May 14, 2021

16. And in my case, with half “me as player” and half “me as Alarrah” mulling, the Dragonborn finally agreed to turn Saadia over to Kematu. Which involved going back to Whiterun and lying to her to get to come to the stables, where Kematu could take her into custody.

12:40 AM · May 14, 2021

17. Side note about this: after lying through my teeth to Saadia, on the way out of the inn, went past Delphine. Who said “Not here! I told you to meet me in Riverwood.” LOL. Wanna say that a little louder, undercover dragon hunter lady? I’m not sure the bard out there heard you.

12:41 AM · May 14, 2021

18. My last dialogue lines with the guy were along the lines of “She won’t be harmed?” “Not on the way. Once we get there, that’s out of my hands.”

12:41 AM · May 14, 2021

And Kematu turned over 500 gold, a share of the reward for Saadia’s capture, and advice to the Dragonborn: “Don’t let yourself be fooled by a pretty face. You’re better than that.”

12:42 AM · May 14, 2021

19. And thus endeth that plot. I think Alarrah was feeling very broody about the entire affair, and probably turned to Lydia to tell her to come with her back to the inn, where the two of them could crash. And then she’d have some intense brooding over some ale to do.

12:42 AM · May 14, 2021

Also accomplished on the Switch:
20. As a player, though, I did like this side plot! Good tight little storyline, interestingly nebulous in terms of motivations, and from what Paul shared with me about his experience with the plot, it’s certainly possible to play it out multiple ways.

12:43 AM · May 14, 2021

If I do another run through Skyrim with a different character down the line, it’ll be interesting to see if I feel like playing it differently!

12:43 AM · May 14, 2021

21. The Switch started demanding to be put to bed at that point, and so I saved and powered down. Next time: more hunting? And trying to figure out other ways to build up assets, because boy howdy do I need a house.

12:43 AM · May 14, 2021

Editing to add

1. This post was written on 3/17/2022, but is backdated to the time of the tweet thread for organizational purposes.
2. The tweet thread references Smuggler’s Den, but the actual name of the place is Swindler’s Den, as I learned when I became more familiar with the game later.
3. Post updated on 12/29/2022 to reconstruct the original Twitter thread in the post body, and remove links to Twitter.
4. 9/30/2024: Updated the HTML reconstructing the tweets to use a CSS class I added under the hood, to make it easier to globally change the styling on posts that use this format. Also, noted that I had a double period in one of the tweets, but keeping it on purpose since that’s how I originally tweeted it.