In Which Faanshi Restores the Gildergreen and Infiltrates Goldenglow Estate

Finally got Faanshi to a point where she can summon a dremora lord! So maybe I’ll be able to stay on Master Difficulty! And once I did that, I proceeded to restore the Gildergreen in Whiterun, and then go infiltrate Goldenglow Estate for the Thieves Guild.

This session was run on Friday 5/27.

Highlights

• Play date: 5/27/2022
• Session number in this run: 17
• Got prompt from Mirabelle to go to Mzulft
• Tried to boing to western watchtower, but killed by Boethiah cultist
• Thrown back to coming out of the mage college
• Boinged back to watchtower, and second time through succeeded in killing the guy
• Returned to Whiterun to sell stuff and have Lydia hang out at Breezehome for a bit
• Went back out to practice magic; alternated between throwing soul trap at the cultist corpse, and using a dragon bone for telekinesis practice
• Leveled up three levels to 33 doing that! Took 2 bumps in Magicka, 1 in Health; took perks for Apprentice and Expert Conjuration, and Apprentice Alteration
• Boinged back to mage college and sold Phinis a boatload of soul gems so I could get the Conjure Dremora Lord spell
• Went back to Whiterun and got Lydia
• Went to Volunruud and this time fucking killed Kvenel by throwing the dremora lord at him several times!
• Got word for Aura Whisper Shout
• Cleared that part of the dungeon of what loot I could get my hands on, which got me overloaded, so tromped slowly back to Whiterun to sell a bunch of stuff
• Killed a giant frostbite spider on the way and happened to spy a standing wrapped corpse, which looked weird
• Boinged back to Fellglow Keep to get the Shalidor book
• Boinged to Cradlecrush Rock to get the other book Urag wanted; had to throw the dremora lord at the giant to take it out
• Got an Ebony Helmet of Alchemy out of the boss chest, tasty
• Boinged back to Whiterun and had Lydia stand down
• Boinged back briefly to the mage college but damn, no, I don’t have enough Illusion skill to buy the Invisibility spell yet
• Returned the books to Urag
• Boinged to Riften; got in late so went ahead and ran Goldenglow
• Got killed only once by final mercenary; second time through did the shoot an arrow down the hall to get the mercenary out of the way trick, then dove downstairs
• Spent my invisibility potion as soon as I got out of the sewer, then swam back to Riften
• Headed straight down into the Thieves Guild and reported to Brynjolf; got paid for the job, gave him the bill of sale, got pointed at Maven for next job
• Got first Bedlam Job from Delvin for Markarth (and noted Delvin had a plate stuck around his neck, LOL)
• Got first Sweep Job from Vex for Whiterun (Ysolda’s house)
• Went back topside and gave the fire salts to Balimund; he had ebony gauntlets and a shield, so I bought those for Lyds
• Went into the Riften fishery and found Wujeeta; gave her the healing potion, and also got her to tell me where her skooma dealer is, to set up working on becoming thane of the Rift
• Also got the Lexicon from From-Deepest-Fathoms
• Boinged back to Whiterun
• Ran the thievery job for Ysolda’s house (sorry Ysolda!); left her 750 gold in her chest
• Went to Breezehome to pick up Lydia; gave her the ebony gauntlets after I improved them
• Headed out to Orphan Rock and got Nettlebane
• Glass War Axe of Thunderbolts in one of the chests!
• Returned to Whiterun; gave Lydia the war axe as well as the ebony shield
• Checked in with Danica at the temple
• Tried to hoof it to Eldergleam Sanctuary
• Successfully killed a wolf near White River Watch; not so much a flame atronach that had killed its witch, accidentally hit maurice! So had to roll back to coming out of Whiterun
• This time I just fast traveled to Mixwater Mill as nearest fast travel marker to minimize the distance
• Spotted Bonecrest Dragon but didn’t want to alert it with squishy Maurice with me, so mostly just snuck over the whole way to the sanctuary
• Ran the sanctuary, got Maurice to get the sapling, left him safely there
• Boinged back to Whiterun to report to Danica and give her the sapling
• Boinged back to Riften to check in with Vex about the successful Sweep Job; took another one, again for Whiterun (Clan Gray-Mane)

Commentary

First bit of this session was basically magic practice, working on leveling both Conjuration and Alteration. Because apparently for my play style, if I’m going to play at higher-tier difficulties, I really need dremora lord backup! And I need Alteration up high enough that I can unlock the Magic Resistance perks, because those will cut down on the amount of damage I take.

Hence, working on leveling both of those up. Got three levels out of that, got Conjuration up to 75 (which was enough to go buy the dremora lord spell) and Alteration up to 50. Satisfying. 😀

Extra satisfying since this finally let me actually clear Volunruud. It took several summons to do so, but at least once I was able to throw the dremora lord in his face, that took Kvenel’s attention off of Lydia and me. So we were able to survive the fight.

Was slightly vexed to realize that the Shalidor book quest actually took me right back to Fellglow Keep, LOL. I forgot to record exactly when Urag gave me the book quests, but I’m pretty sure I got them when I brought him the stolen books back from the first trip to Fellglow. At which point:

“Khajiit is pretty sure you just sent her to that same place. You could not have mentioned to her that you wanted this book when you sent her the first time?”

Running Goldenglow this time through, I kept it super tight, and headed straight for the cellar without trying to go upstairs and steal the extra shiny thing. At Master Difficulty, even outfitted in my best armor, I’m still too damned squishy to take that risk! And I didn’t want to have to call up the dremora lord to fight the mercenaries if I could avoid it. Just because of the general “trying to avoid killing anybody on a Guild job” thing.

And honestly I almost bailed on running Goldenglow, just because I realized at the back door to the estate that a) I didn’t have the Throw Voice Shout yet, and b) I also didn’t have the Invisibility spell, and just one potion. But I went ahead and did it, and was relieved that it wasn’t as difficult as I’d feared!

Running The Blessings of Nature this time through, tried to do that as quickly as possible–just because Maurice is even squishier than I am. And I could have gotten away with doing it just once if I hadn’t actually accidentally hit him during a fight. Oops!

“Khajiit has brought you this blade, now what must she do? Oh. Khajiit did not anticipate that another would ask to travel with her. But yes, you may travel with this one, strange furless pilgrim of Khenarthi.”

On this, my fifth Skyrim playthrough, I actually saw the inside of Ysolda’s house for the first time. And she’s definitely one of those characters that falls into the category of “not wealthy”, no matter what the Sweep Job’s algorithm would have you believe. So I left money in her storage chest, just because I like Ysolda and didn’t want to steal from her. Even if the objects in question were generated specifically for the Sweep Job quest!

Next time

Not sure yet. I have a lot of quests queued up, so plenty to pick and choose from. Now that I’m able to call up a dremora lord, some of these now feel more feasible. Like, say, going after the other two bits of Mehrunes’ Razor! Or going to Mzulft or Avanchnzel or Arkngthamz.

Screenshots

Editing to add

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