In Which Delga Becomes Arch-Mage of the College of Winterhold

In this session, I concluded the main plotline of the mage college! Ran Labyrinthian, got the Staff of Magnus after my stalwart housecarl killed Morokei (all hail Lydia!), and returned to save the college and get named Arch-Mage. Go me!

Highlights

• Play date: 12/8/2021
• Session number in this run: 39
• Began running Labyrinthian
• Mostly not a problem up until I got to the part in the Tribune zone with the spellcaster traps, one of them fried me, ow ow ow ow ow; second time through i timed using become ethereal correctly and nabbed all the soul gems before they could fry me
• Made it through to the end of the dungeon—and Lydia actually killed Morokei! WELL DONE LYDIA
• She did a pretty damn good job beating up on Estormo too, though I did get in the last whack on him
• Pretty well overloaded though by the time it was time to leave Labyrinthian, so had to potion up to get back to the college
• Came back with Tolfdir, Arniel, and Faralda out on the bridge because OH SHIT; had to kill a couple more anomalies before i could get through with the staff to take down the external barrier
• Ancano did actually kill me once before i was able to take him out—being burdened here was a problem! But I made it through the second time
• And now I’m Arch-Mage!
• Left the Staff of Magnus in the Arch-Mage’s quarters as well as a couple of scrolls, but grabbed the leather strips out of one of the containers for later smithing use
• Boinged to Western Watchtower to go to Whiterun and sell stuff
• Picked up all my alchemy ingredients stashed in Breezehome; would have done alchemy, but realized I didn’t have the enchanted alchemy gear
• So I did an initial round of selling to Adrianne and Belethor
• Then boinged to Heljarchen; grabbed smithing materials there, but no alchemy gear
• Did I leave it at Lakeview? Boinged down there but answer: no
• Left a couple of the enchanted weapons from Labyrinthian in the armory there, also the Ancient Helmet of the Unburned
• Added a couple of shrines to the shrine base in the cellar
• Realized that right, derp, I also have Honeyside, so got Lakeview carriage driver to take me to Riften
• OH SHIT DRAGON oh wait it’s just a flyby okay then (don’t scare me like that, Riften)
• Came into Honeyside the back way (note to self: buy porch furnishings)
• There are my alchemy things! Also more smithing materials! And my axe!
• So I went to the chopping block near the forge and chopped some firewood, and was able to use Balimund’s forge to make dragonbone arrows from all the bones I got off the Skeletal Dragon in Labyrinthian
• Also made some ebony arrows, and a full set of dwarven armor and other pieces which I then sold to Balimund
• Boinged back to Heljarchen, and did a little transmuting of iron ore to silver to make ingots (had to stash silver in chest to keep it from turning to gold)
• Made a shrine to Mara on the shrine base in this cellar
• Cooked a little more food
• Forged banded armor items on the outside anvil; still not leveling up though so went back inside to enchanter tower
• Slapped some simple enchantments on the banded armor and banded shields I made; that got me leveled up to 47, and took a perk in Speech to make haggling a little easier
• Returned to Whiterun, and now I could finally sell the shitty arrows! Because seriously I do not need to be carting around 1,000+ Iron arrows, or Falmer arrows, or Forsworn, or Ancient Nord
• So sold Adrianne the Falmer, Forsworn, Ancient Nord, and Steel arrows, and also half the Iron ones; sold the rest of the Iron ones to Elrindir
• Boinged to college to get level 47 training, and trained with all five trainers
• Aw, Faralda and Nirya actually both said nice things about me saving them all <3
• Boinged back to Western Watchtower and explored up to the top of it, just to see what the view was like up there
• Then settled in Breezehome for the night, and stashed things prior to heading out to Karthspire for Alduin’s Wall

Commentary

Again, nothing terribly new here–just me re-running the finale of the mage college plot, one of my favorite parts of Skyrim. <3

As with Merawen’s run, I did this plot significantly later than Alarrah did, and wound up going through Labyrinthian at level 46. Which I feel made it significantly easier to get through.

Yet again, I probably screwed myself over by being overloaded by the time I reached the end of the dungeon–which slowed me down when dealing with Morokei. But Lydia actually killed Morokei for me, which just goes to show that if you outfit your housecarl well enough, she can be almost as badassed as you. Way to go Lydia! \0/

Lydia likewise did most of the fighting with Estormo on the way out, for that matter. I was able to get in the final killing blow on him, though it meant chasing him almost all the way back out to where we’d fought Morokei, specifically because he flipped out and ran!

My dude, my housecarl and I just killed this dragon priest and took the staff from him. Do you really think you’re a powerful enough sorcerer to take both of us?

Yeah I didn’t think so. 😉

One new thing I can say about Labyrinthian though, a thing I didn’t properly appreciate in either of my two prior runs: Savos Aren sacrificing his own final two compatriots in order to entrap Morokei in Labyrinthian’s depths. The game makes this explicit when you see Savos’ final ghostly appearance on the way out, but it’s also distinctly confusing–because the two enthralled wizards you have to take out to open the way to killing Morokei are both male.

And one of the two other survivors of Savos’ party was a Redguard woman. So yeah, that’s buggy. The wiki page for the quest calls this out in the “Notes” section, but I hadn’t really registered this before!

One other thing I’ll note is that so far, of the three characters I’ve played, I feel like Delga has the biggest “SAY WHAT NOW?” reaction to being informed she’s now the Arch-Mage of the college. Particularly given that I’m pretty sure Delga’s various magical skills at this point of the game are significantly worse than Merawen’s were, or even Alarrah’s! None of her primary five magic skills have cleared 40 yet.

But sure okay fine I saved the college, you made me Arch-Mage, yay? I think? 😀

After getting that done, the rest of the session was all about boinging between various houses, reorganizing my crafting materials, and trying to get leveled up to 47. Which I did finally do!

Next time

Heading off to Karthspire to find Delphine and Esbern and nudge the main plot along some more, now that I cleared the point at which I can get Dragonbane’s best version!

After that: I feel some additional thane action coming on. Couple of places I’m not thane of yet! I still need to do Morthal and Solitude and Markarth, and okay yeah fine I’ll probably go ahead and do Windhelm too just because it’s a new thing to do!

Screenshots

Editing to add

• 11/19/2023: Restored missing gallery, and added play date and session number markers.