In Which Faanshi Acquires Mehrunes’ Razor and Sabotages a Meadery

Time for more Thieves Guild action with Faanshi the Khajiit, in which she carries out Maven Black-Briar’s scheme to take over the Honningbrew Meadery near Whiterun! And also, I acquired Mehrunes’ Razor.

Highlights

• Play date: 5/29/2022
• Session number in this run: 18
• Boinged back and forth between Whiterun and Lakeview, buying materials and building
• Leveled up to 34 working on that; took Magicka bump and first Magic Resistance perk in Alteration
• Also fought three bandits on second Lakeview visit, with help of Rayya and dremora lord; looted all their stuff; vaguely offended that one of the bandits was a Khajiit! RUDE
• Boinged back to Whiterun and sold all the bandit loot to Elrindir; bought glass arrows
• Got Lydia on duty, and ran Cracked Tusk Keep, no trouble with Lydia + dremora
• Got full set of Nordic gear off the orc bandit chief
• Got the shards via Telekinesis spell
• Overloaded so boinged back to Whiterun to sell stuff
• Improved up the nordic gear so Lyds could wear it, and sold the orcish pieces they replaced
• Set out from Whiterun on foot to head into the Reach
• Non-hostiles encountered:
  • M’aiq the Liar
  • Thalmor without prisoner
  • Thalmor with prisoner
• Hostiles encountered:
  • Cultists
  • Four sabre cats
  • A couple of cave bears
  • Mudcrab
• Passed Dushnikh Yal en route but didn’t trigger encounter at the gate, went by on the wrong side of the place, I guess?
• Reached and ran Hag Rock Redoubt, and this time didn’t opt for stealth since I had Lydia and dremora; no real challenge from any of the Forsworn, including a couple of Briarhearts; took out the giant spider stuck in the tent, too
• Made it up to the hagraven at last and got the pommel of the Razor, also got the word for the Dismay Shout off the wall
• Boinged straight to Dawnstar from there
• Crashed at the Windpeak Inn; did not engage Erandur yet for the nightmares plot, sit tight, i’ll get to you
• Sold a bunch of things to Rustleif to get unburdened
• Returned to Silus and took him up on the invite to meet him at the shrine
• Boinged to Stonehills to try to meet him here–and, Frost Dragon! Killed it but the dragon bits and loots got me right back burdened again
• Briefly tried to find the shrine anyway but realized that was stupid, so blew my last Philter of Strength to boing back to Whiterun, and sell and store stuff to clear the load
• THEN boinged to the Lord Stone, and had to fight the bandits that respawned there
• Shrine was a short distance away so headed towards the stairs; snowy sabre cat there, threw the dremora and Lyds at it
• Silus met me at the top of the stairs and tried to pray to Dagon to get him to mend the Razor; no dice, so had me do it
• And since I was standing at the correct corner of the table, completely bypassed the option to spare Silus
• No trouble taking out Dagon’s dremora with my own dremora and Lydia; took out the two inside in the shrine and then looted the place, too
• Returned to Whiterun with loot to work on selling and crafting; did some smithing and alchemy and selling
• Leveled up to 35; took Stamina bump and next Magic Resistance perk in Alteration
• Boinged to Lakeview (and briefly back to Whiterun for more materials) and built out more of the place, including beds! Rayya needs somewhere to sleep! Also built an alchemy lab and an arcane enchanter, and some of the cellar
• Boinged to mage college with intent to get Illusion training, but killed by Frost Dragon >_<
• Second attempt to boing to mage college: no dragon, whew
• Bought Conjure Storm Atronach spell from Phinis
• Decided to opt for Destruction training from Faralda; also bought Fire Rune, Ice Spike, Frost Rune, Lightning Bolt, and Lightning Rune spells from her
• Boinged back to Whiterun and began running Dampened Spirits
• Went pretty much as easily as it did for Ysani, thanks to being able to throw the dremora ahead of me; so long Sabjorn, hiya Mallus; got Sabjorn’s Promissory Note and other loot out of his office
• Boinged back to Riften and gave Delvin the Honningbrew Decanter
• Had a conversation with Cynric about how he got into the Thieves Guild
• Reported to Maven and got her enchanted dagger payment (and avoided Talen-Jei who came up the stairs after me)
• Reported back to the Guild to talk to Brynjolf about the symbol
• Got directive to talk to Mercer, and Mercer’s orders to report to Solitude and shake down Gulum-Ei
• Saved there for the night

Commentary

Main notable aspect of getting Mehrunes’ Razor this time: even running without worrying about stealth, getting through Cracked Tusk Keep and Hag Rock Redoubt was significantly easier with a dremora to summon as well as having Lyds wearing higher-tier armor.

Because yep, apparently my ability to survive higher Difficulty levels is entirely dependent upon having powerful followers to kill things for me!

And I took advantage this time of the same bug I did with Ysani: i.e, if you stand anywhere around the altar except where Silus stood when he prayed to Dagon, then you completely bypass the option to spare him. He just goes straight to fighting with you. I noted with interest that this is not mentioned on the wiki as a thing that’s fixed by the Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch. I will need to see if this reproes with Shenner’s run on the PC!

I took similar dialogue options to Ysani, too. “Khajiit is not intimidated by you, Merrunz Demon Cat, and she will use this blade as she sees fit.”

Likewise, running the Dampened Spirits quest for taking over Honningbrew Meadery was quite easy when I was able to throw the dremora at crazypants skeever mage Hamelyn. So, first fence outside the Guild proper achieved!

Side LOL for this: when I ran the initial conversation with Mallus in the Bannered Mare, I only realized after I was done talking to him that Idolaf Battle-Born was sitting right there at the same table. He’d apparently come up and taken the other chair when I wasn’t looking.

“Is Khajiit going to have to bribe you for your silence, Idolaf of the Clan Battle-Born?”

And, upon getting Mercer’s orders to head to Solitude and shake down Gulum-Ei, I can imagine Faanshi saying, “Khajiit will not kill him if you so order it. but may she scratch him a little with her claws?”

I don’t think I’d taken the time to have a conversation with the NPC Cynric about how he’d gotten into the Guild. He does appear to have an interesting backstory, about how a jailbreak gone wrong had him in prison in High Rock for three years, and how he decided to join the Guild with Delvin’s support when he got out. So he appears to be yet another character with interesting backstory who doesn’t appear to do much except be there to tell you his backstory. Which is slightly disappointing, but at least he’s got a good story to tell you!

Next time

Now I’m starting to get to the fun stuff in the Thieves Guild plotline. 😀 But before I take on running Scoundrel’s Folly, and therefore the stealth run through the East Empire Warehouse, I really need the Throw Voice Shout. Which means I need to go hit Shearpoint.

And I also really want that Invisibility spell. And Quiet Casting. So I need to work on leveling up my Illusion.

So maybe I’ll go work on some other stuff in the meantime. I have several other options! First and foremost, though, I want to hit Shearpoint. 😀

I’m also eying Riften (where I could work on getting the thaneship and Honeyside), the mage college plot (next up: Mzulft), running Avanchnzel (for the boost to Smithing), running Arkngthamz (because Katria!), or maybe Folgunthur (for an opportunity to burn some draugr with J’zargo’s scrolls).

Screenshots

Editing to add

• 11/12/2023: Restored missing gallery, and added play date and session number markers.