In Which Merawen Has a Way Livelier Night Than Anticipated

I was in the mood for a low-key and frivolous session, now that I’m between doing Dragonborn and finishing up the main quest. So for this session, I mostly boinged around a lot between various places, moving resources around, buying more resources, and working on building Windstad Minor.

But I also did one of the most frivolous Daedric quests in the game: A Night to Remember, which features the Daedric prince of debauchery, Sanguine!

Highlights

Session number in this run: 69
Tromped very slowly into Whiterun
Used equipment at Warmaiden’s to improve up a bunch of stuff, and also made a second pair of dragonscale gauntlets to finish out the second set of dragonscale armor
(Opted at this point to not make boots because I already had an extra pair of dragonscale boots, though I changed my mind about this later)
Got another round of improvement on the Guild Master Armor as well as all the stalhrim stuff
Stepped into Breezehome to say hi to Lydia, and drop off a bunch of books to re-fill the shelves there
Also left the second Dawnbreaker and the stalhrim greatsword I bought from Glover (because let’s leave Lyds some good stuff!), and some clothes to keep in the dresser
Sold a bunch of stuff to Belethor and Arcadia
Tried to boing to Windstad only to realize I’m out of sawn logs there
Boinged to Kynesgrove to find Roggi Knot-Beard to get him to be my steward
Sent Jenassa home for a bit so I could get Roggi to follow me, and took Roggi outside the inn to summon Arvak and fast travel back to Windstad
But as soon as I summoned Arvak, a Revered Dragon showed up, and Arvark instantly ran off at the dragon’s arrival–because hey, he may be undead but he is still a horse!
Got that slain and also lol’d at Roggi yelling about loving a challenge as he got in on the dragon fight
Finally got over to Windstad and got Roggi on board as steward
Bought a bunch of sawn logs and started building out the place; built main hall and armory wing, started bedroom, but ran out of iron
Boinged over to Solitude to drop off some stuff and also buy iron from Beirand
Boinged back to Windstad to build more stuff
Boinged to Markarth and bought iron from Tacitus and Lisbet
Boinged to Falkreath and stayed the night in the inn, then bought more iron from Lod
Boinged to Lakeview to doublecheck if there was anything there I wanted to pick up
Boing: Solitude to drop off more things
Boing: Heljarchen, where I found Golldir fighting bandits and stopped to help him out
Also grabbed a bunch of leftover building materials there
Boing: Windstad, to consolidate building materials
Boing: back to Solitude to sell more things
Did some enchanting and alchemy; started double-enchanting the new dragonscale armor
Boing: mage college for level 66 training
Conjuration training on the way in, even though it was early in the morning when I arrived, since I caught Phinis wandering around as I headed to Arch-Mage’s quarters
Did a little more enchanting and alchemy
Went into Arcaneum and got training from Colette and Drevis, and also another spell from Colette
Got another Shalidor quest from Urag
Explored where the additional doors in the Arcaneum went and made it out onto the walkway overlooking the main courtyard–and HI THERE REVERED DRAGON
Shot it from above and then jumped down into the courtyard to get its soul and loot
Went into Hall of Attainment to talk to Tolfdir; got another rupture quest and his round of training
Went into Hall of Countenance to get training from Faralda
Boinged right back to Heljarchen because the Shalidor book was at the giant camp right next door
Geared up in Destruction robe and Aetherial crown
Headed north on foot towards Dawnstar rupture site
Passed cave with a dead mammoth in front of it, and something growling in the cave? Pretty sure this is an unmarked locale
Took out the anomalies this time with magic \0/
Returned to college to report to Tolfdir and Urag
Discovered the dragon skeleton was twitching around the courtyard, which was disquieting! And also surprising because dragon bones are heavy
Boinged to Windhelm and began A Night to Remember quest with Sam in Candlehearth Hall; did drinking contest
Woke up in Temple of Dibella in Markarth, and boy was Senna the priestess pissed
Paid for the damages, and she settled down and pointed me at Rorikstead
Fast traveled to Gjukar’s Monument nearby
Oh hi there Taron Dreth! Why yes, I am wearing an aetherium crown that I made with my very own hands at the Aetherium Forge! And by the way, Katria said hi, you asshole!
Took him out in a magic battle!
Took out his mercenaries as well; last mercenary yielded, but then came back at me and welp okay fine you get to be on fire
Onward to Rorikstead then; rode over there on Arvak because I got overloaded with mercenary loot
Rode past Imperials discussing why they got in the legion
Made it to Frostfruit Inn; saw “Erik the Slayer” in the inn along with his father Mralki the innkeeper
Spoke to Jouane Manette in the inn (heh same voice actor as Tolfdir)
Paid cranky farmer for his missing goat that I apparently abducted, oops; he pointed me at Ysolda in Whiterun
Summoned Arvak again and rode there (and avoided giant in the road as well as bear on a ledge by the road)
Whiterun guards remarkably unfazed by me riding up on a ghost horse!
Ysolda told me she’d given me a wedding ring…? And she changed genders on my so-called fiancee a couple of times in this story, too, lol
Boinged next to Riverside Shack to get to Morvunskar where my so-called “wedding” is supposedly happening
Hostile mages in the place; wasn’t able to sneak past the ones outside, but I did elude the ones inside
Then got teleported to Sanguine’s party; he gave me his staff, and teleported me back to Windhelm
Returned to Windstad to build more things
Went home to Solitude

Building and crafting and enchanting all the things

In addition to what I said in the notes above about building and crafting and enchanting all the things, I will note the following:

Decided I wanted the armory and bedroom and storage wings at Windstad, just to give myself more space to drop off armor and weaponry. And also to give the place extra beds as I get more people to show up there. (I did however also notice that housecarl Valdimar hadn’t shown up at the place yet? I may need to bop back to Morthal and see if he’s stuck there.)

And once I had enough of the armory wing built out, as well as the upstairs armor mannequin, I was able to drop off the light stalhrim armor, the original set of dragonscale, the Guild Master armor, the Blackguard’s armor, and the Ahzidal armor.

Also left the stalhrim weapons there (except for the arrows). I decided to make myself a new dragonbone sword, and I also wound up deciding to switch back to that and the dragonbone bow, because those do higher damage than the stalhrim weapons.

I eventually decided to switch off to wearing the new dragonscale armor I made, too. Because I had enough powerful Fortify Enchanting potions that I was able to get some really nice double enchantments onto the various armor pieces, including +30 to Smithing on both the armor and the gauntlets.

I’m also to the point now where I feel like I could risk setting Smithing to Legendary. I have a set of double-enchanted dragonscale armor now, and my dragonbone weapons are, I suspect, as improved as I’m going to get them for a while. So this might be a good time to take all those perk points and go drop ’em on something else. Possibly onto the various magic schools.

And I have some more building to do still at Windstad, as well as a large backlog of building materials I could use to make and sell additional armor pieces. So I feel like I could quickly build Smithing back up.

Roggi Knot-Beard as steward of Windstad

I like this guy! He’s friendly and clearly loves his mead. I feel like I should leave him a nice large stock of it at Windstad.

It’s not clear to me if he still works at the mine near Kynesgrove now that I’ve hired him as steward, though. He was around in each visit I made to Windstad in this session, so he doesn’t seem to boing back to Kynesgrove.

I was amused to see him studying the various armor sets I put into the armory wing once it was built!

A Night to Remember quest

Paul’s been encouraging me to do this quest ever since I started playing Alarrah, and heh. I’ve been holding off on it, for no particular good reason. I finally did it in this session, though, because it seemed like exactly the fun, frivolous thing that might be good for Merawen after the SRS BZNZ quest of taking down Miraak. And before she has to dive into yet more SRS BZNZ, saving the world from Alduin.

Plus, Sanguine giving her a chance to lighten up for once is probably the nicest thing a Daedric prince has ever done for her. <snerk>

I got off pretty lightly in terms of how I played the quest out, though. Because I completely bypassed a couple of the steps in it, and I passed all the Bribe checks on the various dialogue options I was given–which meant I got to do a whole string “oh shit I’m so sorry, I’ll be happy to pay for the damages” to everybody I talked to.

And that let me avoid having to clean up the temple in Markarth, having to recover the lost goat, and, most importantly, having to discover that I got engaged to a hagraven. ;D

As a player I was slightly chagrined and relieved that I bypassed the hagraven part! I think if I do this quest again on the next playthrough, I’ll have to see what happens if I choose the “Persuade” dialogue options rather than the “Bribe” ones. “Bribe” options seemed appropriate for Merawen though, because she’s got acres of money to spare–and her history as Guild Master has gotten her into the habit of throwing money at problems to make them disappear. Most of the time, this works out for her!

I did like the little environment you’re teleported to once you reach the part where Sanguine’s true identity is revealed. His “Misty Grove” is a pocket realm of Oblivion according to the wiki, and certainly compared to Apocrypha, it was a much nicer place to visit.

And as Daedra go, Sanguine is not exactly harmless necessarily, but still fairly benign! And with a goal of just encouraging “fun”. I’m kind of okay with that. Because it’s kind of hilarious that one drinking contest with him sends Merawen on a Skyrim-wide drunken tear! The Dragonborn, clearly, plays very hard.

It amuses me as well to just think about how this played out for her in general. My contact place for “Sam” was Candlehearth Hall in Windhelm. Given that this was fucking Windhelm, I’d expect Merawen probably set foot in the place again with the intention of bringing further merchandise to Niranye the fence, and also to do business with her people in the Gray Quarter. (She might hate Windhelm overall as a city, but I feel like she’s willing to set foot in the place if she has the opportunity to give monetary support to the Dunmer there.)

And once she actually makes it home with the staff, I have to imagine how the conversation with Jenassa went once Merawen tries to tell her about this little adventure. This is why I’m a little chagrined about missing the hagraven part–because I’m envisioning Jenassa bursting out laughing.

This also makes me wonder how the situation would have played out if I’d actually had Jenassa with me at the time!

Next time

Still not quite ready to go back to the main plot, so the next session will probably be some more low-key side stuff. I’m about 3/4ths of the way through level 66 at this point, and I’m thinking about what I can do to get to level 67. So the next play will probably include one or more of the following:

Running the dungeon right next door to Windstad, to help out Anska
Getting the Wabbajack in Solitude
Pirate plot in Windhelm, maybe? Because I haven’t done that one before
Forsworn plot in Markarth
Going to run Forelhost, the other remaining Dragon Priest dungeon, since that’s the one with the Dragon Cult

We’ll see what I’m in the mood to do when I start that session!