In Which Faanshi Becomes Thane of Falkreath and Hunts for Hircine

This was a big, busy session! Major action here: becoming thane of Falkreath, clearing Embershard Mine, running the Ill Met By Moonlight plot (Hircine’s Daedric quest), and buying Breezehome in Whiterun!

Highlights

Play date: 5/13/2022
Session number in this run: 5
Slept a few hours in Whiterun
Set out for Falkreath and found the Khajiit outside Whiterun! Bought three rounds of Sneak training from Khayla
That let me level up to 11 (and spent all my gold); took Health bump and next Light Armor perk
Proceeded onward towards Riverwood
Hi M’aiq you handsome lion you <3
Stopped at Talos shrine but the dead Thalmor was a mage, no armor, so ohwells no elven armor for me yet
Encountered refugee farmers, saved the woman from an attacking wolf and gave her 5 gold
Killed a skeever
Killed a couple of skeletons when I encountered a hunter and his horse, the horse actually also fought the skeletons
Made it to Falkreath; guard at the gate asked me about the dog on the road
Went to go talk to Siddgeir, who was surprisingly friendly out of the gate; got the quest to clear Embershard Mine
Passed a Khajiit thief, who, also surprisingly, didn’t try to rob me?
Went the other way from Falkreath this time
Called up flame atronach so it and Lyds and I could clear the bandit tower over the road; frostbite spider also showed up during that fight
Killed a couple of wolves
Second sighting of M’aiq!
Overshot getting to Embershard so swung back cross country
Cleared Embershard without too much difficulty; got overloaded so handed some stuff off to Lyds for her to carry
Came out to try to hoof it back to Falkreath, but dragon! Killed by fire, and thrown back to coming out of the mine
Fast traveled to Falkreath instead
Got in early so did a little bit of smithing and then waited for Lod to show up; got his quest objective to give meat to the ‘dog’; also sold him a bunch of the bandit loot
Went to report in to the Jarl and got his reward for killing the bandits; also got objective to become thane
Sold stuff at Gray Pine Goods
Went to check out the graveyard; got Runil’s quest to get his journal
Talked to Mathies and got pointer re: Ill Met By Moonlight
Talked to Thargald to get the quest to take ashes to Runil
Picked up a loose cabbage and sold it back to Mathies for thane quest number one
Gave ashes to Runil for quest number two
Set out to Brittleshin pass to go get the journal
Killed flame atronach that was fighting a hunter en route
Also passed Imperials + prisoner
Passed Half-Moon Mill while hoofing it around the lake
Reached Brittleshin Pass
Killed once by spellcaster trap; knocked soul gem loose with Unrelenting Force second time through
Killed several skeletons
Got Runil’s journal, then had hard fight with boss who was a necromancer adept
Successful at killing him though and luckily he did not kill Lydia! Flame atronach very useful in the fight
Returned to Falkreath; gave Runil his journal back for thane quest number three
Got the jarl to declare me thane and got Rayya as housecarl
Returned to Whiterun to sell stuff, and topped 4,000 gold
Ran Carlotta’s quest to get Mikael the bard off her back, which put me around 4,700 gold
Got Amren’s quest to go get his sword back, and headed to Redoran’s Retreat to do that
Started sneaking across plains; eluded giant
Killed two wolves and two mudcrabs
Leveled up to 12; took Magicka bump and first Alteration perk
Ran Redoran’s Retreat; killed once by bandit chief, then cleared the place and got Amren’s sword
Also elven armor woo! Also got over 5K \0/
Returned to Whiterun via roads; passed party traveling to Vittoria Vici’s wedding (Khajiit thinks you are not going the right direction for Solitude, she thinks you should perhaps go north, but what does she know? She is only Khajiit)
Sold stuff to Elrindir and oh hey he had elven boots and gauntlets!
Stayed the night at the inn; got up the next morning and bought Breezehome \0/
Made some potions and sold them to Arcadia
Went out to go hunt down the chest for Treasure Map IV, which had scaled armor 🤩
Then went down to the bandit camp by the Guardian Stones
Encountered fugitive and hunter en route; gave the hunter back the Orcish Sword of Thunderbolts the fugitive had taken
Cleared the bandit camp and got Treasure Map I, which I then went and looted
Returned to Whiterun
Khajiit! <3 Sold several things to Ri’saad
Headed in and slept the night at Breezehome
Bought elven helmet from Warmaiden’s; elven helmet looks squished on a Khajiit head!
Boinged to Falkreath with intent to run Ill Met By Moonlight
Dragon! Fire breather, and it killed me; thrown back to Whiterun
Boinged to Falkreath a second time, and this time the dragon was a frost breather; Lydia, the guards, and I all took it out
Then I went to go talk to the werewolf; promised to take the ring back to Hircine; then Sinding broke out
Went hunting for the White Stag; found it and tracked it up close to Angi’s Camp (though I didn’t officially discover Angi’s Camp yet)
Successfully killed it and got Hircine’s objective to go take out Sinding–and promptly killed myself climbing badly down the cliff, oops
Thrown back to coming out of the jail after Sinding’s escape; take two of killing the stag was on much lower ground so got it done, and re-acquired the objective
Headed towards Bloated Man’s Grotto
Attacked by random wood elf skooma addict en route; went unarmed against him, but Lyds also did a lot of damage to him
Fought multiple wolves
Saw Dark Elf farmer on his way to Solitude
Started running the grotto; found the initial slaughtered hunters and got the report from the one who died
Sinding challenged me on why I’d come after him; told him straight up I could not defy Hircine; Sinding accepted this, and hunt on
Rapidly got overloaded getting equipment off the other slain hunters
Also MOST iMPORTANTLY: got Meridia’s Beacon out of the chest midway through the grotto!
I think it was somewhere in here as well where I leveled up to 13; took Magicka bump; took Steel Smithing perk
When Lyds and I caught up with our quarry, was able to throw the flame atronach at him; atronach and Lyds kept him engaged well enough that I was still able to hit him with arrows
Got Hircine’s approval for killing him and got the Savior’s Hide
Headed back to Whiterun
Killed more wolves, a few mudcrabs, a skeever
Spotted a giant along the road and then TWO MORE, yikes
Found Faldrus the Dark Elf pilgrim, and got him to mark the Shrine of Azura on my map
Made it back to Whiterun, and got Adrianne’s quest to take the sword up to her father
Sold a bunch of stuff to her and Belethor, which got me over 1300 gold
Went up to Dragonsreach and bought the remaining furnishings for Breezehome! And also gave Proventus the sword
Did a bit of alchemy to burn through ingredients
Smelted the silver ore I had to make ingots, then made a few bits of jewelry, and a couple armor pieces
Talked to Lars Battle-Born and got the quest to get Braith to stop hassling him
Sold more things to Adrianne, Belethor, and Arcadia
Talked Braith off of Lars
Then went back to Warmaiden’s and improved my scaled armor so I could trade up to it from elven; sold Adrianne the elven
Saved for the night

Commentary

I’m not sure if this is because I helped the refugee farmers by giving them five gold or what–but I had two separate incidents in this session where a character was surprisingly friendly. First time was going to talk to Siddgeir in Falkreath and having him go straight to “Good to see you! Finally, someone useful is around”. Second time was when I was approached by a thief–who did not, in fact, try to rob me. And who simply asked, “Need something?”

The only other possibility I can think of here is that I’d paid the bandit toll at Valtheim Towers, but I can’t imagine that that would have impacted random thieves. Not to mention the Jarl of Falkreath, even if he has been dealing with bandits.

I feel like picking up a loose cabbage and handing it back to Mathies right there on his property probably really shouldn’t count for a quest to harvest crops! Unless you hand-wave this as “Khajiit sees some of your cabbages have fallen into the dirt, please allow Khajiit to help you gather them.” 😉

I did finish out a set of elven armor in this session–minus the shield–but quickly discovered that an elven helmet looks very squished on my Khajiit head! Faanshi’s head is definitely too big for it and it cannot be comfortable to have her ears squished under that thing. I’ll be upgrading her to scaled armor as soon as possible.

It has definitely been harder playing at Master difficulty so far, but I will completely acknowledge that one of the deaths in this session was entirely my own goddamn fault. And that was when I hunted the White Stag the first time, then took one wrong jump trying to come back down the cliff. And went tumbling to my death. Ow ow ow ow ow.

I decided this time through that for a change of pace, I would not spare Sinding. Decided this after studying up on the wikis to get an idea of how the Khajiit perceive the various Divines and Daedra, and it seems to me that a Khajiit would not be inclined to go against the will of Hircine here

“Khajiit regrets that she must kill you, but she cannot go against the command of the Hungry Cat.”

So I obeyed Hircine’s directive, and got the Savior’s Hide as a result. And I’d be wearing it for the magic resistance alone–except that right now, I still don’t have Arcane Blacksmithing, so I can’t improve the piece. And I have better protection off the scaled armor I acquired out of the treasure chest for Treasure Map 1.

On the way back to Whiterun from that, I spotted not one, not two, but three nearby giants. One was traveling along the road, so I was pretty sure that was just a random encounter giant. The other two, I think, were specifically associated with one of the nearby giant camps?

And this was a noticeable hit on the game’s performance. The Switch was struggling hard to keep up with those creatures being in my vicinity!

Also, for generally obvious “because I was level 13 and boy howdy was I not ready to take on giants” reasons, I did not go near them.

Next time

What’s on my radar to do next:

Go after the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller, which will get me the first word of Become Ethereal, but also put me farther along on the main plot
Go after Barbas and start the Daedra’s Best Friend plot
Go deal with Meridia’s Beacon and run the Break of Dawn
Need to work on leveling my magic!
Still pondering whether to go Lord Stone or Steed Stone
Run the Bard College plotline just to get the skill bumps

Not sure what order I’m going to do these in yet. I want to be a little more powerful though before I go after Dawnbreaker!