In Which Delga Acquires the White Phial and the Final Aetherium Shard

Two main overall goals with this session: bringing back the components for Quintus to repair the White Phial, and finally making it to Raldbthar to recover the fourth and final aetherium shard.

With a side helping of not one, not two, but three different dragons slain! Two of whom had names! You fought well, Nahagliiv and Viinturuth.

Highlights

• Play date: 12/19/2021
• Session number in this run: 49
• Did a little shopping in Solitude with Calder following; sold stuff to Beirand and Sayma
• Bought a couple more Divines amulets from Radiant Raiment
• Boinged back to Windhelm to check in with Quintus
• Dismissed Calder so he wouldn’t get stuck when I hit Raldbthar
• Got up next morning and shopped in market
• Niranye was stuck up on her stall? WTF
• Bought a few things from her, Aval, Revyn (mostly iron ore for later crafting)
• Boinged next to go look for a Forsworn Briarheart
• Fast traveled to Gjukar’s moment with the intention to go on foot to Lost Valley Redoubt, thinking I should be able to find a briarheart there
• Dragon vs. giant; dragon won and flew off, so I looted the giant
• Hi again Talsgar!
• Hmm dragon not entirely gone, still flying around in the direction i’m going, i.e., west–oh no wait, this was Nahagliiv? 
• Killed Nahagliiv in Rorikstead, still pretty sure that this was the same dragon who fought the giant, it was the right color; may also explain why the dragon won the fight! Not sure a giant can kill a named dragon?
• Oh okay quest marker actually wants me to go to Sundered Towers for the briarheart; can do
• Found Bleakwind Bluff for the map
• Took out a sabre cat
• Reached Karthspire again and fought several of the Forsworn there, mostly ranged fighting, atronach + dragonbone bow
• Got to Sundered Towers / Red Eagle Redoubt
• Took out a briarheart even though it was a little awkward for the parts where he ran off and panicked; waited for him to actually attack me again as I wasn’t going to attack a guy cowering from me
• Then fast traveled to Heljarchen to get to the giant camp the next quest marker wanted, which was Stonehill Bluff
• Actually got the mammoth tusk powder without fighting the giant even though he saw me and was going to come over and attack, but I got in and out fast enough that I didn’t have to fight him
• Boinged to the Throat of the World and got the Unmelting Snow (HI BYE PAARTHURNAX)
• Boing to Windhelm to return to Quintus and let him re-make the Phial; RIP Nurelion; accepted Phial from Quintus and told him to set it to healing
• Bought more iron from Niranye, Aval, Revyn
• Boinged to Windstad, and oh hey Valdimar showed up
• Built out more things in the house until out of iron; stowed remaining building materials to bring down the carry weight
• Off to Raldbthar finally!
• Frost dragon, right by what I think is Viinturuth’s grave? Dragon was wily, it kept flying off to fight other things, ice wraith and multiple Imperial soldiers
• Met Khajiit on the road south of Dawnstar and bought wares from them
• Immediately after, jumped by Argonian in dwarven armor, took him out
• Passed non-hostile Thalmor trio
• Corundum vein
• Discovered Bronze Water Cave while noting distant dragon
• Snow bear
• Fought ice wolf just as I found Irkngthand, which also alerted the bandits at Irkngthand exterior; took all of them out, about seven of them, with flame atronach’s help
• Found Raldbthar; dealt with exterior bandits
• Cleared dungeon with a fair bit of loot, including the fourth aetherium shard; got out overloaded, though
• Silver vein and iron vein
• Trudged towards Windhelm–and there’s Viinturuth! Took him out, and also a pissed off horker
• Glancing encounter with pissed off Stormcloaks since Viinturuth grazed their camp; Stormcloaks came to gawk at the bones, though!
• I swam across the river to get to Windhelm, though, because done fighting the war with those guys
• Started Whirlwind Sprinting back to Windhelm
• Fought frost troll and then cultists
• Made it back to Windhelm
• Made some more dragonscale armor with the bones from the frost dragon and Viinturuth (smith called me a milk drinker again)
• Trudged back to Hjerim
• Stuck Aegisbane on one of my weapons racks there since I have no way of giving it back to Clan Shatter-Shield (note to self don’t invite them over)
• Saved for the night

Commentary

When trying to do any shopping in Windhelm, I suppose having the smiths pissed off at me is balanced somewhat by having not one, not two, but three different general goods vendors I can sell stuff to. All of whom seem to often have iron. So even if Oengul and Hermir are now permanently pissed at me, I can still get business done in Windhelm.

And it does indeed seem that even if he now hates my guts, Oengul is still willing to take my money. And won’t keep me from accessing the forge if I need to.

Still though, it’s not particularly fun to try to get any forging done around people who actively hate your guts. Extra frustrating when Windhelm is one of the cities that actually has a smelter at its forge. (Said it before and I’ll say it again: why the hell don’t Solitude and Riften have smelters at their forges? That makes no goddamn sense.)

Which is why, the last few times I’ve been in Windhelm, I’ve limited using the forge mostly to after dark when Oengul and Hermir aren’t actively working the forge. Or, just not doing any smithing there at all, and instead taking care of that elsewhere. Shit, I do after all have three entire houses with their own forges. I don’t have to smith in Windhelm.

(Really, I’ve mostly only been hanging out in the place because it’s at least still fairly new to have the ability to do so. And I’ve been trying to tie up loose plot ends there before moving on to the next major phase of the game. And, breaking in Calder as a housecarl!)

All of which leads me to saying that a) looks like scattered bugginess is in play as well in the Windhelm market, as I caught Niranye standing on her booth rather than behind it. And b) it was good to get the White Phial quest resolved. No massive surprises with that, though I was nonplussed to have a Forsworn Briarheart actually freak out at me in combat. Kind of one of the last hostiles I’d expect to do that? Maybe he was a newer Briarheart?

Running Raldbthar likewise had no particular surprises. It did strike me this time through that bits of it seem to have gates and other structures similar to what I saw in Irkngthand running the Thieves Guild plot with Merawen–and given that Irkngthand and Raldbthar are very close together, their similarity of look in places makes a kind of sense to me.

I didn’t run Raldbthar with a follower this time, specifically just because I knew whoever I had with me would get stuck at the first blade trap. Fortunately I didn’t have any particular problem, even at the end with the four stuck gears.

Was a little surprised though to kill two named dragons in this session, in addition to the unnamed Frost Dragon! This should be the last of the named dragons I see for a little while, until I progress in the main plot. Or until I run Dawnguard and Dragonborn.

I never did kill the named dragon in Blackreach in my first two sessions, so I may need to try that out this time through!

Next time

As long as I’m in Windhelm, I feel a visit to that Aretino boy coming on.

Screenshots

Editing to add

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