In Which Delga Visits the Greybeards

Whoops, I completely forgot to put up yesterday’s Skyrim post. This is for the playing I did on Tuesday, 11/2/2021.

Main point of this session was to go see the Greybeards and get their initial training on how to use Shouts, including the second word of Unrelenting Force and the first word of Whirlwind Sprint.

Also had my first encounter with Miraak cultists, and cleared Silent Moons Camp.

Highlights

• Play date: 11/2/2021
• Session number in this run: 4
• Set out with Lydia to go see the Greybeards
• Critters killed: wolf, two skeevers
• Hostile NPCs: Two novice necromancers, one of whom had a spellbook for Fury, but I know that one already
• Cleared Valtheim Towers, because fuck you, toll road bandits
• Ran into the revelers who like their mead
• Also found Talsgar the wandering bard who had apparently killed a couple of bandits?
• Paid him 25 gold to sing the Age of Aggression
• Found unmarked locale with the broken cage door that I’d found before as Merawen
• Derped my way cross-country towards Ivarstead, but killed by troll, oops
• Thrown back to after towers but before revelers, so everything past that retconned
• Second time through I found an Old Orc instead who was waiting for ‘a good death’; as an orc, I offered with utmost respect to actually give him that death, he took me up on it, and Lyds and I took him out; rest well with Malacath, old brother
• Took slightly different route towards Ivarstead this time
• Found bouncer from Cragslane Cavern who’d apparently been sent to retrieve escaped pit wolves; bouncer was dead, and Lyds and I had to kill the pit wolves
• Found a troll again in the same place, but this time we killed it
• It had apparently killed three Imperial soldiers, so I took a torch and some arrows from them, but mostly left them intact
• Also mined an iron vein
• Made it to Ivarstead
• Chatted with the innkeeper about Shroud Hearth Barrow (OHNOEZ IT’S HAUNTED) and about the Greybeards
• Got a rumor about Aventus Arentino
• Rented a room
• Got up the next morning to tackle the 7,000 steps
• Got Klimmek’s quest to do the supply drop
• Spoke with Barknar at the second emblem (HI BARKNAR hope you last longer in this game than you did in the last one)
• Met Karita at emblem four
• Critters killed on the way up: three ice wolves, one frostbite spider
• Made it to High Hrothgar, and did the Shout training; got the quest to go get the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller
• Overburdened, so quaffed last potion of strength to fast travel back to Whiterun and sell some stuff
• WHY HELLO THERE CULTISTS
• Flame atronach came at me while Lydia and Whiterun guards took out the actual cultists
• That was a bracing fight! Managed to survive the atronach with liberal use of potions, and also, leveling up to 10 which let me get a health reset
• Amren, Brenuin, and Ulfberth War-Bear all reacted to the cultist corpses
• Got cultist’s orders pointing to Solstheim
• Got first guard gossip pointer for Dawnguard as well
• Did some smithing at Warmaiden’s to make stuff to sell to Adrianne and get Smithing up a couple more points
• Took another perk on the Two-Handed tree
• Headed to other shops to sell stuff
• Bought training from Amren
• Shopped with Arcadia
• Bought two rounds of training from Eorlund
• Went up to Dragonsreach to destroy an enchanted iron armor to learn the Fortify Heavy Armor enchantment
• Got Farengar’s favor quest to take frost salts to Arcadia
• “Better suited than i am to carry out such a menial task”? Fpbptpbpt, kind of a douche, then, Farengar? Thought better of you
• Destroyed the armor on the enchanter, anyway
• Went back down to the square and talked to Carlotta to get her favor quest to get the bard off her back
• Bard was not a hard sell so I asked him to sing Ragnar the Red to be a good sport
• Carlotta paid me 400 gold
• Popped back into Arcadia’s shop to give her the frost salts and she gave me potions
• Got another round of training with Amren on the way to the gate
• Found the Khajiit were back so sold a couple things to Ri’saad
• Also bought a round of Sneak training from Khayla, which got me leveled up to 11
• Took another perk on Two-Handed tree
• Went to go run Silent Moons Camp so I could get the bounty
• Cleared the place and took out about six or seven bandits
• Got multiple lunar iron weapons to disenchant and/or sell
• Spotted a dragon flying in the distance, but it never got close enough to be a problem
• Returned to Whiterun and parked by Jorrvaskr
• Saved for the night

Commentary

The main goal for this session was to go to High Hrothgar and do that initial encounter with the Greybeards. This didn’t play out particularly differently than how I did it in my previous runs—with one exception. I discovered that having a two-handed weapon wielded did seem to interfere with my muscle memory for doing Whirlwind Sprint! I had to un-wield my greatsword to be able to do that part of Arngeir’s trials properly.

And I apparently still don’t have it completely down as to where all the emblems for the walk up the 7,000 steps are. I tried to hit all ten of them to get the blessing from them, but I missed several. Oops.

The most interesting aspects of going to High Hrothgar this time were actually the NPC encounters along the way. I’m definitely having more challenging encounters with the Difficulty kicked up another notch. This session in particular, though, it was nice to have a type of NPC encounter I hadn’t had before.

Namely, the Old Orc who informed me that he was waiting for a “good death”, and was in this particular spot because Malacath had apparently given him a vision to come here and wait for his death to come to him. Since I’m playing an orc this time, I figured Delga would actually find that meaningful—and respectfully offer to give him the death he seeks. He took me up on that offer, and Lydia and I proceeded to dispatch him.

I’m still thinking about Delga’s background, and I’m finding myself starting to lean in a direction of her maybe being kicked out of her stronghold for refusing to marry a chief she didn’t like. But this doesn’t mean she doesn’t respect Malacath, or understand where the Old Orc was coming from.

Lydia may or may not have gotten it? Particularly with the Old Orc’s commentary about Nord men getting as old as they do being unseemly.

(I kind of envision Delga and Lydia chatting about this on the road, after this encounter.)

Next notable thing about this session was returning to Whiterun and getting greeted by my first Miraak cultists. And by greeted, I mean “violently attacked”! This went better than Alarrah’s first run with the cultists, that’s for sure—because I was specifically at Whiterun’s gates, and Lydia and the guards were all on hand to fight the cultists while I focused on taking down the flame atronach one of them conjured.

Last but not least, I went to go clear a bounty on a bandit leader I’d picked up—at Silent Moons Camp, which I’d only just discovered in Merawen’s run and which I never did properly clear with her. This time, I did. As bandit lairs went it wasn’t particularly large, but the layout was interesting, both inside and outside.

Also, I hadn’t realized that Silent Moons Camp was as close as it is to Halted Stream Camp! Do the bandits in both places, when they respawn, work together? Do they share supplies? Or are they rivals?

Next time

I’ve already played the next session, so look for that in the next post! Main action in that will be returning to Ivarstead to clear Shroud Hearth Barrow, trying and failing to go after Nettlebane, and punting instead to setting up becoming thane in Falkreath!

Screenshots

No screenshots taken this time.

Editing to add

• 11/18/2023: Added the play date and session number markers I started adding in later playthroughs.