In Which Faanshi Quests Through Shriekwind Bastion and Shadowgreen Cavern

This is a double session post, brought on by trying to continue Faanshi’s run simultaneously with exploring running Skyrim on my PC laptop now! The action here was two short sessions with her across the last couple of days, Wednesday 5/18 and Thursday 5/19, doing low-key side plots in Shriekwind Bastion and Shadowgreen Cavern.

Highlights

• Play dates: 5/18-5/19/2022
• Session numbers in this run: 10-11

Wednesday’s play

• Boinged from Solitude to Falkreath
• Bought the land for Lakeview; headed over that way
• Passed Thalmor + prisoner who did not hassle me
• Bandit tower had respawned though so I threw Lydia + atronach at it
• LOL boulder traps still triggered but did not squash the Thalmor, damn
• Troll
• Mined the two iron veins outside Lakeview
• Built Small House structure for Lakeview
• Then set out to go run Shriekwind Bastion and then buy lumber
• Approached one hunter who actually drew a bow, which startled me, until I realized a skeever was coming up behind us; Lydia and the hunter killed it
• Passed second hunter with dog and spotted the waiting horse near Shriekwind Bastion’s entrance
• Ran Shriekwind; killed once by master vampire, and had to go back and get Lydia because she lost track of me while I was sneaking
• Got the word for Elemental Fury
• Fast traveled to Western Watchtower
• Flyby blood dragon (noted guard keeping a sharp eye on that dragon but not actually firing at it)
• Parked in Breezehome and saved

Thursday’s play

• Sold some stuff in Whiterun to clear the inventory
• Destroyed the Steel Greatsword of Shocks I’d gotten out of Shriekwind Bastion so I could pick up the shock damage enchantment
• Then boinged to Half-Moon Mill and bought lumber for Lakeview
• Boinged to Ivarstead and gave Temba Wide-Arm her bearskins
• Boinged back to Whiterun
• Sold some stuff to Ri’saad and bought a bit of ore
• Then went in and bought Warmaiden’s out of iron, and also bought steel and corundum
• Boinged to Lakeview for house building
• Built out more furniture and saw Rayya show up
• Boinged back to Whiterun to pick up the book for Rustleif
• Then tried to boing to Solitude environs to find Shadowgreen Cavern
• Killed by sabre cats, oops; thrown back to coming out of Whiterun
• Boinged back to Statue to Meridia
• Threw Clairvoyance and Muffle to boost Illusion; leveled up to 24! Took Magicka bump and Apprentice Illusion perk
• Passed Imperial trio
• Gaaaah killed by ice wraith! Take three! This time I damn well saved after taking the level up
• Argonian thief, for whom I still had no time; took him out with Lydia and Dawnbreaker
• Finally reached Shadowgreen Cavern
• Killed by a bear partway through, and also the spriggans were difficult 😛
• Made it through the second time—and, notably, first time i ever actually used the shout Kyne’s Peace to get bears to back the fuck off for a little bit
• Boinged back to Solitude and gave Noster back his helmet; got him to bump my Sneak
• Saved

Commentary

I’ve visited both Shriekwind Bastion and Shadowgreen Cavern a lot at this point, so have nothing particularly new to say about either one. But what I can talk about here is how playing on Master Difficulty is definitely having an impact.

I’m level 24 now with this character. And I’m still having trouble with getting killed by bears or sabre cats, because the higher you go in Difficulty, the more damage monsters do to you and the less you do to them.

What this tells me is: before I go too much further with Faanshi, I really need to work on beefing up her Light Armor and One-handed skills. So I feel some training with Amren coming on. And I may need to go give some money to Grelka, bitchy though she is.

Or, since I’ll be going there soon anyway, Scouts-Many-Marshes on the docks of Windhelm. Since apparently he’s the Common-level trainer for Light Armor, while Grelka is the Expert-level trainer.

And I should probably go ahead and launch the mage college plotline with Faanshi, just to get access to the mage trainers. From what I learned with my Ysani playthrough, higher difficulty will be a lot better to deal with if I can summon powerful allies to help me in battle.

Which means I also seriously need to level up my Conjuration just so I can get to the point of summoning a dremora lord!

Next time

I left off in Solitude, so I think I’ll do a bit of a circuit around cities to knock down some minor tasks. I’ll give that book to Rustleif in Dawnstar, then circle around to Windhelm and get the bounty from Kjar’s boss. And get in some Light Armor training with the Argonian there.

Then I feel some skills leveling coming on.

And, I’m to a point where I need to decide whether to start the Thieves Guild plot, the College of Winterhold, or maybe both in parallel. The mage college will give me access to the mage trainers, which I feel like I’m really going to need to survive at this difficulty level. The Guild, on the other hand, will give me a pretty fast boost in available money, which I’m going to need to actually pay those trainers!

Screenshots

Editing to add

• 11/22/2023: Restored missing gallery, and added play date and session number markers.
• 10/9/2024: Converted gallery to native WordPress one.