In Which Delga Helps a Werewolf, and Slays Vuljotnaak and Volsung

Mostly this session was about quests not related to major plots, since I wanted to whittle down the list of miscellaneous things stacked up in my journal. But I did finally run the Ill Met By Moonlight Daedric quest, since it was safe for me to do so. And I took out the named dragon Vuljotnaak, and the dragon priest Volsung!

Highlights

Play date: 12/4/2021
Session number in this run: 35
Got Lydia on duty to commence circuit of assorted quests
Nabbed Blade of Falkreath from Breezehome to take to Lakeview; racked the Nord Hero war axe in its place
First stop: took carriage to Riften to resolve Shadr’s quest; got Shadr’s thanks and his potion of invisibility
Retrieved dragonplate items from Honeyside so I could give them to Lydia
Improved the Blade of Falkreath to Flawless, and improved the dragonplate boots to Legendary, at Balimund’s forge
Gave Lyds the boots and gauntlets
Fast traveled to Pinewatch to visit Lakeview
Lyds killed a mudcrab while I nabbed the nirnroot out of the pond
Dropped off Blade of Falkreath and grabbed the cogs because I’ll need those to give to Arniel later
Headed towards Falkreath on foot
Killed spriggan matron at Peak’s Shade Tower
Encountered two Vigilants vs. Ancient Vampire; Lydia helped them take potshots at the trapped vampire, then the Vigilants were all “the mercy of Stendarr does not extend to daedra worshippers”
Hey fuck you, lady, next time I’ll have my housecarl let you kill the vampire all by yourselves
Overshot Falkreath so just fast traveled back to get there
Slept at the inn, then got up the next morning and shopped at Gray Pine Goods; leveled up to 44 selling Solaf some stuff
Came out and OH HEY ELDER DRAGON; killed it when it landed right by the forge
Everybody in the town: “Holy crap, she’s Dragonborn!”
(Including Bolund, the asshole who keeps going “I can’t believe we let provincials like you wander Skyrim”; I want him to get eaten by the next dragon that lands in Falkreath. But this time through at least, he appears in the screencap I got of gawkers!)
Sold stuff at the forge, and made Lydia a dragonplate helmet with these conveniently acquired new dragon bones and scales!
Triggered the level up and took another Enchanting perk
Sold remaining dragon bones to alchemist Zaria and bought a bunch of potions
Went to the jail to talk to Sinding the werewolf, and offered to take the ring back to Hircine
Left the jail as Sinding transformed and escaped, then killed the white stag to trigger Aspect of Hircine; got Hircine’s orders to go hunt Sinding for his glory if I want him to un-curse the ring
Fast traveled to Bloated Man’s Grotto (with potion since I was pretty heavily loaded)
Promised Sinding i wouldn’t kill him, and helped him take out the various hunters
Got overloaded again taking loot
Made it out of the grotto and had final conversation with Hircine, who was not actually pissed off, so there’s that
Also, HELLO VULJOTNAAK, dragon attacked in the middle of my conversation with Hircine!
After Hircine vanished, took out the dragon, who was fighting something else not far away after he tried to hit me first
Vigilants further down the road were close enough to see the action and were all “By the gods! I don’t even know what to say!”
I do! Y’know who just killed that dragon? That’s right, a Daedra worshipper! Stick that in your skillet and let it simmer
Had to Whirlwind Sprint back to Whiterun though
Saw a second pair of Vigilants; they were apparently out in force in Whiterun Hold overnight?
Made it back to Whiterun; sold stuff at Warmaiden’s and Belethor’s, picked up a lot more building materials
Made Lydia some dragonplate armor, improved up to Legendary, with the dragon bits from Vuljotnaak
Went to Heljarchen to build a lot more things
Wound up fighting bandits on my own front steps when I came out after building! Stupid bandits
Built out a bunch more things in the cellar, in the alchemy wing, and in the enchanter tower; also improved up several of the bandit loot items to burn through backlogged materials
Stashed several materials at Heljarchen for later, then headed back to Whiterun
Fought three death hounds en route, no vampire though? Just death hounds?
Sold a bunch of bandit loot to Elrindir
Stashed cogs for later, because damn those things are heavy, and I need the carry weight; also stashed food items and ingredients
Slept the night at Breezehome
Did more shopping
Went to go run White River Watch to get Kharjo his amulet back, and got overloaded yet again
Tromped back to Whiterun for more shopping
Boinged to Lakeview to see about destroying things on enchanter table, only oh okay fine I already have those enchantments
Boinged to Solitude for shopping this time, because I wanted to go to Volskygge, final word of Whirlwind Sprint + Volsung, fuck yeah
Sold stuff to Beirand and Sayma, also bought a bunch of healing potions from Angeline
Headed towards Volskygge
Non-hostile creatures encountered: flyby dragon
Non-hostile NPCs encountered: Thalmor + prisoner
Hostile creatures encountered: frost troll
Hostile NPCs encountered: thief (Argonian male); i threw a “walk away. now” Intimidate check at him; he answered, “Nice try, you don’t scare me”—except he did then walk away, so apparently I did?
Reached Volskygge and ran the place; got the Hanging Gardens book for Urag, and got the word for Whirlwind Sprint off the Word Wall
Volsung the dragon priest erupted from his coffin, but didn’t actually fight me…? Just floated there while I wailed on him with my sword and finally took him out. Oh well, I got the mask, that’s the important part 😀
Came near Deepwood Redoubt, but not close enough to mark it for the map; fought a couple of Forsworn at a nearby camp though
Proceeded south-ish from there and visited Orc stronghold Mor Khazgur
Bought four rounds of Block training from the chieftain; also shopped with their alchemist and smith
Boinged to Heljarchen and built out a few more bits of the house
Hoofed it south to Whiterun one more time
Did some alchemy in Breezehome, then stashed remaining ingredients and also the circlet and gauntlets with enchantments so I don’t have to carry them around
Shopped a bit at Belethor’s and Arcadia’s; bought one round of Alchemy training from Arcadia to fill out training for level 44
Returned to Breezehome and saved for the night

Ill Met By Moonlight quest

I’ll say straight up that I delayed running this quest until after I de-wolfed myself, entirely because I did not want to deal with wearing a cursed ring that would risk me wolfing out in the middle of inhabited places and having every NPC in sight freak out and attack me.

There may come a day when I do a Skyrim run and feel adventurous enough to try that, but this session was not that day!

Now that I am de-wolfed, however, I decided to go ahead and clear this quest off of my journal. I figure that Delga would have a bit more sympathy for a werewolf than either Alarrah or Merawen did! And I think that if the game would have let me do so, she would have even have been willing to try to de-wolf Sinding.

(Though there are interesting questions here about whether the “chuck a Glenmoril witch head into the Flame of the Harbinger” method of de-wolfing a werewolf would have worked on Sinding? Or would it have worked only for werewolves who were specifically part of the Companions?)

Since the game does not give me that option, though, I settled for running the quest in Sinding’s favor and not killing him as Hircine commanded. Which I think hit Delga in ways that it wouldn’t have hit Alarrah or Merawen, either, specifically because Delga bailed on being a werewolf. It fits in well with the whole idea of Delga seeking where she truly belongs, god-wise. So she would have taken this task on by way of directly reaching out to Hircine, and seeing if he was angry with her for bailing on being a werewolf, or if she could be in his good graces still.

And I’m a trifle disappointed that the quest is not clever enough to account for Hircine reacting to whether you are a werewolf! 😉 Also, I wish that I could give the Ring of Hircine to Aela. As she’s the only other werewolf Delga still knows, and I feel like Delga would want her to have that ring.

Killing dragons and Volsung

Multiple dragons in this session meant I was able to kit out Lydia with a set of dragonplate armor. I still think the dragonplate is fugly, but it looks slightly better on her than it did on Algis the Bulwark in Merawen’s run!

I did not give Lydia a shield yet, but that’s okay, as she likes two-handed weapons anyway.

And even if the armor’s ugly, it should still keep her very well protected. It’s important to let my housecarls defend themselves!

As for Volsung, it was very odd that he didn’t actually put up a fight when he burst out of his coffin at Volskygge. He just hovered there, floating, while I whacked him to death with my sword. Not that I’m complaining! It was just weird.

And I got the mask, which was one of the main two points of going to Volskygge to begin with. 😀

Visiting Mor Khazgur

Since it was right there, I popped in to say hi to the Orcs at Mor Khazgur. Which proved to be a fruitful trip, as I discovered that their chieftain was a Block trainer. So I bought four rounds of training from him, which was rather more satisfying than doing so from Njada, since Njada is a snarky bitch.

I need to make a point of visiting the stronghold over near Windhelm, too. Just because I think Delga would get satisfaction out of trading with all the Orcs.