In Which Faanshi Finds Nirnroot and Stolen Books

This is Faanshi’s play session from Wednesday, 5/25, and was fairly low-key by comparison with what I’ve been doing with Shenner. Main action here: finishing up the ingredients quest for Ingun in Riften, and then proceeding with the mage college plot, enough to get to the point of recovering the stolen books from Fellglow Keep.

Highlights

• Play date: 5/25/2022
• Session number in this run: 16
• Attempted to head south from Lakeview in search of nirnroot
• Blood Dragon! Attempted to fight, but it chomped me >_<
• Coming out of Lakeview, take two: went north this time and started trying to circle the lake
• Game was determined to throw me a dragon, but this time it was a Frost Dragon; Lydia, Rayya and I all fought it right by Lakeview
• During the fight I think we pissed off the conjurer hanging out at the necromancy circle near Lakeview, so we wound up killing him, too
• Then I started circling the lake in search of nirnroot and did find two
• Killed a couple of skeletons
• Talked briefly to the fisherman that lives at one end of the lake
• Evaded at least one frostbite spider I didn’t want to bother to engage
• Marked Ilinalta’s Deep for the map, hold that thought, I’ll be back
• Veered up towards Riverwood and found another nirnroot near there; that got me to 13, so I boinged to Ivarstead to hunt for the rest of them near there
• Mined a few veins of iron and one of gold; also harvested a bunch of slaughterfish eggs and Nordic barnacles
• Spotted the giant attacking Narzulbur but didn’t want to head over there to engage, I am too squishy for a giant right now >_<
• Did however engage a cranky Breton in full orcish armor; took some potion assistance but I took him out, and nabbed both his full set of orcish armor and his glass sword; gave the armor and boots to Lydia to fit her out in full orcish
• Engaged a spriggan that I managed to kill, but also hit the bears it summoned with Kyne’s Peace to get them to fuck off
• Actually swam past Goldenglow, LOL, and a mercenary spotted me, but I fled; be patient, mercenary, Khajiit will be back later. Not that you will see her, if she has anything to say about the matter
• Did a bit more nirnroot hunting and finally hit 20; returned to Riften, gave Ingun all the ingredients, and cleared her chest of useful potions; bought a fire salt off of Hafjorg
• Bought two rounds of training in Light Armor from Grelka
• Bought three rounds of Smithing from Balimund, and a chunk of malachite to improve the glass sword
• Boinged back to Whiterun since I didn’t feel quite ready to take on Kvenel again
• Did a small bit of smithing, alchemy, enchanting, and selling of things to Adrianne, Belethor, and Arcadia; dropped a Fortify One-handed enchantment on a necklace I was carrying (though it wasn’t better than the necklace I already had, need to improve my enchanting)
• Headed out from Whiterun to go run Fellglow Keep
• Cultists! Took out all three of them directly, but with Lydia and atronach help
• Corundum vein
• Wolf
• Sabre cat
• Fire mage adept vs. ice mage adept near Fellglow; fire mage won, but I took her out
• Started running Fellglow in earnest; took me a few times to get through safely
• First time to try to liberate the vampires went badly because the other mages came running, and I got swarmed; second time through was able to take out the first mage, then throw the levers to release all the vamps at once and let them commit havoc
• Had Lydia as a follower so told Orthorn to get to safety, then finished running the place
• Got a few more fire salts for Balimund, up to 8
• Passed Persuade check to get the Caller to let me have the books, so left peacefully
• Boinged back to Whiterun to do some smithing and alchemy, and sell stuff when I got up the next morning
• Leveled up to 29 somewhere here, I think? Took Health bump and Elven Smithing perk
• Tried Volunruud again but no dice, held out slightly longer this time against Kvenel but not enough to last, so retreated again
• Boinged to mage college; bought five rounds of Conjuration training from Phinis, and was then promptly killed by a frost dragon that landed in the courtyard 😛
• Thrown back to coming out of Volunruud; mage college take two
• Got the training from Phinis; also bought Frost Atronach and Bound Bow spells from him, after selling him a boatload of my soul gems
• Got the frost dragon again, but this time Lyds and atronach and I killed it; I had to stay out of the way by the door to the Hall of Attainment but hey whatever works
• Slept the night in my bed in the hall
• Chatted with J’zargo on general ‘hello there fellow Khajiit’ principles; got his favor quest and scrolls
• Went to go talk to Urag about the books; got assorted skill books from him as reward and directive to go talk to Tolfdir
• Reading all the skill books I hadn’t read yet got me almost all the way to level 30
• Went to go talk to Tolfdir and got interrupted by Ancano
• Went to go have conversation with the Psijic monk; suspicious Ancano was SO SUSPICIOUS but welp he can die mad 😉
• Got Tolfdir to point me to the Midden, also bought Telekinesis spellbook from him; went down into the Midden to talk to the Augur of Dunlain
• Leveled up to 30 while down there after taking out a couple of ice wraiths and a draugr; took Magicka bump; took next Stealth perk in Sneak (gonna need that for Goldenglow)
• Got the Augur’s directive to find the Staff of Magnus
• Got the arch-mage to point me at talking to Mirabelle, and to give me his Mage’s Circlet
• Saved at that point for the night

Commentary

I continue to be on the verge of bailing on playing on Master Difficulty, but so far it hasn’t become annoying enough for me to bail completely. Still, though, finding it less fun and more of a chore to have to fight harder to do less damage than before to opponents that are doing more damage to me.

I’ll see if this continues to be annoying once I’ve gotten skills trained up enough.

For now, I’m going to hold to the strategy I’ve identified in previous posts:

1. Work on Thieves Guild tasks to build up my money pool
2. Pay for training in Light Armor, One-handed, Archery, Conjuration, and possibly also Enchanting
3. Park somewhere nice and open like the Whiterun plains, and work on leveling Alteration with Telekinesis practice, and Conjuration by Soul Trap

Also, other things I know I need to do:

1. Figure out best way to become Blood-Kin to the Orcs so I can visit strongholds without a problem, and therefore get access to the chief in Dushnikh Yal so I can get training from him in One-handed
2. Consider running Folgunthur even though strong risk of draugr in there that’d hand me my ass
3. Consider running Arkngthamz, even though similar risk with Falmer

Next time

I’ll talk to Mirabelle at the mage college just to get far enough along to get her directive to go to Mzulft. But then it’ll be time for skills practice. And then hitting Goldenglow Estate!

Screenshots

Editing to add

• 11/22/2023: Restored missing gallery, and added play date and session number markers.