In Which Ysani Restores the Gildergreen and Adopts a Dog

This was a lower-key session, in which I took care of several small side items, as well general building at both Lakeview and Windstad. Main things accomplished: clearing High Gate Ruins, taking out the dragon at Skyborn Altar for a bounty, and helping Danica Pure-Spring with the Gildergreen in Whiterun.

(This post is for the play session done on Wednesday 2/23. Thursday 2/24’s post will be forthcoming shortly!)

Highlights

Play date: 2/23/2022
Session number in this run: 30
Boinged to Windstad
Worked on building the house some until daybreak; no sign of Valdimar yet
Went ahead to High Gate Ruins! Since it’s right there
Took a few times to make it through the dungeon, since draugr kept killing me; once i got into the groove of calling up both dremora, that solved that
Made it through to the end after several tries, got the word for Storm Call, got Vokun’s mask; got Anska her scroll and she gave me the spellbook for Conjure Flaming Familiar
Boinged to Solitude for loot selling; got a bunch of materials from Beirand and another pair of gloves from Radiant Raiment, and sold miscellaneous items to Sayma
Boinged briefly to Lakeview to build remaining enchanter table
Oh hey Valdimar, da fuck are you doing here, you’re at the wrong house, my dude (well okay fine the other house isn’t exactly furnished yet, so carry on)
Boinged to watchtower on the theory that I’d do some hunting on the plains and fill some soul gems
Except TWO DRAGONS YIKES? One appeared to just be a flyby
But the other was apparently a known world encounter, involving three burned corpses, a carriage, a stray dog, and another dragon; got that dragon killed with the help of the guards
Also found the stray dog, so now I have a doggo follower
Went with this good boy into Whiterun to smith and sell
Boinged to Lakeview again; built some of the safes in the basement, and got Lydia to hire a carriage
Boinged back to Windstad to build some more and drop off stuff
From there, went to Skyborn Altar so i could kill the dragon for the bounty
Mined a corundum vein
Cut through Labyrinthian on the way to the dragon; with help of doggo and Réjean and André, killed four, count ‘em, four frost trolls
Made it up to the dragon lair! Took out the dragon with fire atronach + storm atronach + Nightingale Bow, and the doggo survived the fight!
Got a word for Frost Breath and also cleared the boss chest
Returned to Morthal to collect the bounty
Boinged to Lakeview to drop off dragon bits and get within range of going after Nettlebane; did some enchanting work first though, enchanted a bunch of jewelry and then went to sell it all to Mallus at Honningbrew
Boinged back to Lakeview to pick up Lydia
Hoofed it to Orphan Rock to get Nettlebane
Went around Helgen rather than through; found remnants of battle between Imperials and Stormcloaks, which the Stormcloaks apparently won; they were nearby and had their own dog, didn’t get close enough to engage though
Threw Lydia AND Réjean AND André AND doggo at the witches and the hagraven at Orphan Rock; barely had to engage myself; got the dagger
Returned to Whiterun to report to Danica; got the quest to go get sap from the Eldergleam; hi Maurice, yes, you can come too
Boinged to Clearspring Tarn to get close enough to hoof it to the sanctuary
Killed en route: bears
Fought with a random Imperial in armor (the Imperial human type, not the soldier type); it was a bad fight and resulted in both Maurice and doggo getting killed; I think I may have hit doggo by mistake with Chillrend when it got in my way? That was no good, so I rolled back from that
Saw dragon flying around, probably respawned Bonestrewn Crest dragon; didn’t get close enough to engage, because getting Maurice alive to the sanctuary was the priority
Ran the sanctuary; got the sapling and left Maurice to commune with the Eldergleam
Came back out and as long as I was in range, hit the Atronach Stone! Hoofed it off a little ways to get out of range of the dragon, so I could fast travel back to Whiterun
Reported to Danica to conclude the quest; got three rounds of Restoration training from her
Stopped in Breezehome and saved for the night

Commentary

I didn’t really plan to have a dog this game, but it kind of happened that way! And all because of the apparently rare dragon encounter I triggered. This is my fourth playthrough and I hadn’t ever seen the type of dragon attack that involves not just a dragon, but also an overturned cart, three corpses, and a stray dog!

(I must be a trifle dismayed that this attack happened close to the Western Watchtower, yet the guards were apparently not able to save the folks on the cart? What the hell, guards? Were you guys all on your coffee breaks or something when the dragon showed up?)

It was alarming as well to actually see two dragons flying around when I showed up at the tower—though I wound up only fighting the one, the other one flew off. (I think? I never saw it get killed by the guards?)

After that whole exciting encounter, though, I heard a dog barking. Finally found him hiding in a bush, and got him to follow me! So now I have a doggo.

And I was quite charmed that he actually survived my fight with the dragon at Skyborn Altar, too. While loyally attempting to leap on the big scary dragon. WHAT A GOOD BOY! <3

Still though, this has upped the priority of my adopting a kid, I think. So that I can have a home for this doggo to stay in. It even happened in this same session that this dog got himself killed in a fight and I really don’t want the doggo to die! So he needs a nice safe place to stay in.

That, however, will require me to have a house with room for a kid to sleep. Right now my only house where that’s true is Lakeview, where I’ve built out the twin beds. And Lakeview does at least have the advantage of being defended by two of my housecarls!

However, it’s still a rural house and therefore vulnerable to giants and bandits, and the occasional dragon as well. So I think I’d prefer to have children and doggo in a city. I don’t have child beds in either Breezehome, Honeyside, or Vlindrel Hall yet, but this is a thing that can be fixed.

And of those three places, Whiterun still strikes me as the best place to put kids and a dog. Partly because the only kids I ever see in Riften are the ones in the orphanage, and partly on general Fuck Markarth grounds. Plus, Breezehome is kind of empty right now anyway since Lyds moved to Lakeview!

Therefore, I think converting my alchemy lab in Breezehome to a kid’s room and adopting Lucia is in my immediate future.

Meanwhile, I also discovered this session that it’s possible to build the parts of a Main Hall in a house out of order—by which I mean, you can build all the support structures for the two floors before you build the actual walls and roof, leaving you with a partly built structure you can still walk through. And that’s kind of neat. You can’t actually do anything else with it except finish building it out—and really, in the cold climate of Skyrim, you wouldn’t want to leave it unfinished anyway. You need that fireplace and walls to provide heat and shelter!

Got me some kind of neat screenshots, though. And I continue to be delighted that even on my fourth playthrough, I’m still discovering new things in this game. <3

Of the dragon at Skyborn Altar, I can say that it was very satisfying to see the doggo actually survive the fight with the dragon! You are a brave doggo but I don’t want you to have to do that again!

Relatedly, see the notes about that fight with the random Imperial. I had two squishy followers with me—the doggo as well as Maurice—and I’m already squishy. So what I really should have done during that fight is just summon the dremora and let them take the guy down for me. Instead, I let that fight go on way too long and the doggo and Maurice both got killed for it.

Hence, the rollback!

Other than that, the quest to get Nettlebane went smoothly. There may come a time where I decide to run that quest the other way and bring back the sap Danica actually asked for. But this was not that time!

Language commentary

Interesting terms observed:

Manoir Bourduvent: Windstad Manor
Le Vermidor: The Gildergreen
Le Primarbor: The Eldergreen
Sanctuaire du Primarbor: Eldergreen Sanctuary
Fléortie: Nettlebane
Pierre de l’Atronach: The Atronach Stone (lit. “stone of the Atronach”)

The name of Windstad Manor gets translated to Manoir Bourduvent in French. And of this, I can say that the “duvent” part of the name is obvious enough; that part means “of the wind”.

Bour, however, I’m less certain about. The closest word I have encountered in French to this before is bourg, which is essentially village. But that’s kind of not applicable here, since Windstad is a single structure, and not an entire village.

I see a potential match on the French wiktionary page for the word, specifically the “zone du culture” definition. If I read that right, that might essentially be area for farmland/agriculture? But really not sure if that was the intention here or what.

The Gildergreen gets translated to le Vermidor in French. I’d have to be making guesses at this, since Vermidor is not a standalone actual French word. Probably another portmanteau? Possibly involving vert for green, and or for gold. But again, I’d be guessing.

Le Primarbor is a bit easier. I suspect this is pretty much “first tree”, based on the game’s worldbuilding for what the Eldergleam actually is. This wouldn’t be a direct translation, but it’d be in keeping with that worldbuilding.

Now that I have the example of Cristalgide as a weapon probably named from a portmanteau of the words cristal and algide, I found another likely candidate for that kind of naming in the French version of Nettlebane: Fléortie. I’m pretty sure this is a portmanteau of fléau, meaning scourge or curse, and ortie, meaning nettle.

Next time

This was the play session for Wednesday 2/23, and in the session for Thursday 2/24, I took care of getting Breezehome set up with children’s beds, so I could adopt Lucia! And have a safe place to leave the doggo.

Because I have important Thieves Guild business to attend to! Very, very much not appropriate to have a barky doggo along for that, no matter how good a boy he may be. 😉

Hitting the Thalmor Embassy, same problem! Doggo, you may be a very good boy, but I cannot have you along for Fucking With the Thalmor espionage purposes!