In Which the Dragonborn’s Player is NOT Willing to Sacrifice Lydia for Dawnbreaker

Twitter thread from 5/20/2021, in which Alarrah finishes the run through Kilkreath to take out the necromancer Malkoran, and acquire Dawnbreaker.

In Which the Dragonborn’s Player is NOT Willing to Sacrifice Lydia for Dawnbreaker, Dammit

1. Dived back into the final stage of The Break of Dawn, to try to take down Malkoran. Holy hopping fuck that was a hard fight.

11:36 PM · May 20, 2021

2. Paul cheered me on and gave me a lot of guidance, and after a couple of initial attempts that got me killed, we decided I’d better retreat and bump up some equipment.

11:36 PM · May 20, 2021

3. Fast travelled right back to Solitude and spun up a bunch more potions, most of which I made, but a few of which I bought off of Angeline in the apothecary, and Sayma over in Bits and Pieces.

11:37 PM · May 20, 2021

Got a LOT more potions to let me resist cold, as well as general healing potions. AND, critically, a couple of Fortify Sneak, and a couple of True Shot.

11:37 PM · May 20, 2021

4. And for good measure I even ran to the Blue Palace to find their court wizard and see if she’d sell me any spellbooks. She DID have a Spellbook of Fire Rune, so Paul had me nab that.

11:38 PM · May 20, 2021

5. Elisif’s court was in session discussing some sort of urgent problem in a cave somewhere, but the Dragonborn, having a cranky Daedra breathing down her neck and going “GO KILL THE ASSHOLE WHO DEFILED MY TEMPLE”, only had eyes and time for the wizard.

11:38 PM · May 20, 2021

Who was perfectly willing to sell her a spellbook.

6. Out of the palace, then, and fast travel back to the Statue of Meridia—

7. —where HOLY SHIT ARE YOU KIDDING ME ANOTHER DRAGON?!

11:39 PM · May 20, 2021

Right about here is where Alarrah AND her player are both going AUGH. And Alarrah is going I DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR THIS, even as she tries to Fus Ro Dah the damn lizard and actually manages to stagger it a bit in the air.

11:39 PM · May 20, 2021

Wound up falling off a little cliff edge and had to run back around to where I could kill the dragon.

8. En route I’m pretty sure I spotted an NPC and I heard him yell something, but he didn’t try to attack me, and that was all that was important once I beat down the dragon.

11:40 PM · May 20, 2021

9. And with that, back into the temple, and then the ruins, and then the catacombs.

10. Paul walked me through various strategies of what to do to hit the bastard.

11:40 PM · May 20, 2021

And Dara also helpfully recommended I pause and go to menu after EVERY action, so that I could regroup and identify the next step. This is what actually finally worked:

11:40 PM · May 20, 2021

a. Cast Oakflesh on myself to bump up my armor
b. Wield my bow and poison it with the Damage Health potions I had
c. Quaff Fortify Sneak
d. Quaff True Shot
e. Sneak down to the doorway and peg the bastard

11:41 PM · May 20, 2021

f. Keep firing until the shades are taken out, AND get the hell out of the direct line of fire so Malkoran can’t hit me
g. Switch off to my ebony sword and poison THAT with Damage Magicka Regen
h. Get between him and dear loyal Lydia, so he can’t ice spike her

11:41 PM · May 20, 2021

i. Stab the ever living daylights out of him

11. However, I had to do it TWICE, and the reason for that is, that sunuvabitch Malkoran KILLED LYDIA.

11:42 PM · May 20, 2021

And even though part of me saw some narrative weight to losing Lydia at this point, and some appeal to having a tougher, grimmer, mourning Alarrah soldier on without her first and favorite housecarl, I ultimately decided I was NOT willing to sacrifice Lydia for Dawnbreaker.

11:43 PM · May 20, 2021

12. So I rolled back to my last save, just before entering the boss battle, and killed Malkoran’s ass AGAIN.

11:45 PM · May 20, 2021

13. And this time, remembered to actually nab gold off the rest of the poor dead sods strewn all over the room before getting Dawnbreaker off the pedestal, so that I’d be clear for Meridia to teleport me up into the sky again and give me her final GOOD JOB MORTAL speech.

11:45 PM · May 20, 2021

14. After which Alarrah lands back at the base of the statue, shaken, head swimming with visions of repeated death at the hands of Malkoran, but with that shiny, dawn-bright sword now in her grasp along with the ebony blade.

11:45 PM · May 20, 2021

15. (I mean seriously, how Groundhog’s Day can you get?)

16. Lydia, it must be noted, was NOT teleported out with me.

11:46 PM · May 20, 2021

So I figure she came charging up out of the catacombs looking for me in all directions, and probably hollered some sort of Nord oath of relief before coming over and bear-hugging her Thane.

11:46 PM · May 20, 2021

And Alarrah, actually smiling for once, hugging her fiercely back before proposing they return to Solitude and get very, very drunk at the Winking Skeever.

11:46 PM · May 20, 2021

17. So now I have Dawnbreaker! And according to its stats, its base damage is actually a little less than the ebony sword. But if you also count its fire damage, it packs a more powerful punch. I am looking forward to swinging this thing at some draugr. 😀

11:47 PM · May 20, 2021

18. But that’ll be next time, because I figured this was a very, very good point to stop and save and think about what i want to do next!

11:47 PM · May 20, 2021

Editing to add

1. This post was written on 3/18/2022, but is backdated to the time of the tweet thread for organizational purposes.
2. 10/2/2024: Reconstructed the original Twitter thread locally, since I deleted my Twitter account.
3. 10/3/2024: Converted timestamps on the reconstructed tweets from GMT to PDT.