In Which Faanshi Returns a Lexicon and Quests for Daedric Princes

Eventful session, though nothing particularly new: I ran Avanchnzel, and obtained Azura’s Star as well as the hammer Volendrung. And, side helping of furnishing Honeyside finally, as well as doing a couple of minor side quests and facing some thugs sent after me for thievery revenge!

Highlights

• Play date: 6/4/2022
• Session number in this run: 21
• Ran Avanchnzel with Iona
• Got killed three times: once by not realizing a door was trapped and getting eaten by the spinning blade trap on that one, and twice by the final big spinning blade trap
• What finally got me past that: handing off several heavy things to Iona, and then making damn sure to hit the Become Ethereal shout so I could make it safely down to the lever to deactivate the trap
• Got first glass armor finally out of running this dungeon, and first Daedric arrows, and a Daedric war axe to hand off to Iona 😀
• Boinged from there to Whiterun to do some shopping and a bit of smithing
• Boinged to Lakeview to drop off building materials and other heavy things, and built a couple more furnishings
• Boinged to mage college
• Bought three rounds of Illusion training from Drevis once I sold him a bunch of soul gems and jewelry
• That let me level up to 38; took Magicka bump and Adept Illusion perk
• Decided to go run Azura’s Star next
• Went to the shrine to visit Aranea; got her request to go to Winterhold and ask after an elven mage
• Talked to Nelacar and bribed him for info
• Boinged straight to Ilinalta’s Deep since I’d discovered it before
• Ran the place with little trouble, thanks to throwing the dremora at just about everything in my path
• Got the Star
• Boinged back to the shrine; flyby dragon upon my return
• Went up to speak again to Aranea, then spoke to Azura directly and got sent into the Star
• Confronted Malyn and his three dremora, by which I mean, I let my dremora beat up on his, though I had to do them one at a time
• Got all three Daedra hearts and looted Malyn before Azura pulled me out
• Hurray I have the Star!
• Decided to run Cursed Tribe next since I got both troll fat and Daedra hearts by running Azura’s Star
• Boinged back to Largashbur and ran that plot
• Fought en route to and inside Fallowstone:
  • Cultists
  • Multiple bears
• Once inside Fallowstone, killed both giants in the cave, since Yamarz got close enough to the first one to piss him off
• Took all of Yamarz’s gear after Shagrol killed him
• Handed some stuff to Iona to hold while we fast traveled back to Largashbur for the conclusion of the plot
• Got Volendrung! Gave that to Iona for safekeeping 😀
• Boinged back to Riften
• Sold a bunch of things to Balimund and Bersi
• Bought most of the furnishings for Honeyside
• Sold things to Tonilia and Madesi as well, then bought the Alchemy lab for the house
• Slept the night in Honeyside and got up to make a bunch of potions and sell them at Elgrim’s
• Got Hafjorg’s quest to go get the ore sample
• Set off to hoof it to Shor’s Stone
• Killed en route by three thugs sent to teach me a lesson, yikes; they got me twice in fact
• Third time through just fast traveled to Shor’s Stone directly to check in with Filnjar there
• But also got the quest to clear the mine of spiders
• Hoofed it safely back to Riften and gave the sample to Hafjorg
• Attempted to hoof it back to Shor’s Stone to see if I’d get the thugs again
• Chief thug showed up first, and Iona and the dremora took care of him
• His contract turned out to be from Una of the Blue Palace! Apparently the Firebrand Wine was missed XD
• The other two thugs were apparently lagging behind him, but caught up, and dremora and Iona took out the other two as well
• Looted all three of them, and overloaded again; tromped back into Riften
• Slept the night
• Sold all the thug loot to Balimund, then bought the garden to finish up furnishing Honeyside
• And oh hey look there’s a thief cache barrel right there in my garden, how convenient! I don’t think i ever knew where those were before in the city XD
• Boinged back to Shor’s Stone to clear Redbelly Mine of its spiders; did that and also mined the three ebony veins in there
• Got Filnjar to pay me for that and bought some iron off of him
• Boinged next to Lakeside to work on more building and smithing there; built more of the cellar and also bumped my Smithing up a couple more notches
• Leveled up to 39, took Health bump, took Advanced Armors perk in Smithing
• Made a bunch of leather armor to sell and a bit of jewelry as well
• Did a little enchanting on some of the items
• Put Volendrung on the weapons rack in Lakeview’s cellar
• Boinged to Honningbrew and sold stuff to Mallus
• Boinged to Whiterun and sold stuff to Belethor, Warmaiden’s, and Arcadia
• Parked in Breezehome and saved for the night

Commentary

Main thing to note about running Avanchnzel this time: definitely valuable to doublecheck how to get past that spinning blade trap just before the boss chamber! As I documented in my Delga playthrough, the big trick for me to do that successfully includes:

1. Making sure I’m not burdened
2. Parking a follower right after the trap triggers at the top of the ramp
3. Using Become Ethereal so I don’t have to care if the spinning blade actually hits me

And also definitely valuable to let the dremora be the primary melee attacker for going after the centurion at the end. Iona and I both hung back and pelted it with arrows.

That adventure and the selling of resultant loot let me rack up enough gold to pay for at least a little Illusion training, but not as much as I was hoping for. Likewise the rest of the session, though I decided that furnishing Honeyside was a higher priority. I’ll need to swing back around to throwing more money at Drevis, though! I haven’t cracked 60 on Illusion yet and I have got to get that number up. I want that Invisibility spell before I tackle either the East Empire warehouse or the Thalmor Embassy.

As I discovered running Ysani, the quest for Azura’s Star is a lot easier if I’m able to summon dremora lords, LOL. That helped in both running Ilinalta’s Deep and the finale inside the Star itself. Malyn Varen’s dremora didn’t get anywhere near me. \0/

The Cursed Tribe plot mostly ran as it’s done for previous playthroughs, up to and including Ugol getting killed by giants before I even spoke to Atub. But one new thing I noticed this time: I hadn’t realized before that there’s a shrine to Malacath, with a large statue of him, at Giant’s Grove. Right there in the heart of Shagrol’s camp. And that there’s a distinct implication here that the giants specifically defiled the shrine.

I only just now noticed this in this playthrough, just because I took the time to explore and loot the camp after taking out Shagrol. And, well, LOL. It makes a lot more sense now as to why Malacath is so actively pissed off at these specific giants. And it also makes the presence of several dead random Orcs at this giant camp make more sense, too.

Paul points out quite correctly that the shrine does in fact get mentioned in Malacath’s dialogue, when Atub does the ritual to ask for Malacath’s mercy. Yet somehow I never connected that line of Malacath’s with the actual Giant’s Grove location. Derp.

And now I have Volendrung! I don’t think I’ll ever wield the hammer myself with this character. But I’ll probably hand it off to a housecarl once I unlock Arcane Blacksmith, and am able to actually improve the thing. For now, I’ve stored it on a weapons rack at Lakeview, until I get to a point of having a housecarl that’s good at two-handed weapons following me.

After that, the session turned to basically furnishing Honeyside. Which was successful. And which also led me to actually checking a Thief’s Cache barrel for the first time, a thing I hadn’t bothered to do on my two previous Thieves Guild playthroughs. Turns out one of those barrels is right smack in my garden at Honeyside. How convenient. And that barrel had some good loot in it, too!

I’m definitely going to have to make a point of finding the other barrels and periodically checking them. 😀

Running the quests to get Hafjorg the ore sample and clear Redbelly Mine of frostbite spiders was mostly interesting for the encounters with the three random thugs. Who were too much for me at melee range, so I had to make a point of prepping for them on the final encounter I had with them.

This involved conjuring the dremora as soon as I saw them coming. And as soon as the chief thug told me he was there to teach me a lesson, throwing the Become Ethereal Shout so he couldn’t one-shot me right then. That gave enough time for Iona and the dremora to leap into battle and distract him, so that I could back off out of melee range.

(Note to self: be prepared to use this strategy for further tough encounters for the rest of this playthrough, and probably once I start the Legendary one as well.)

I was kind of surprised that the giver of the contract on me turned out to be Una of the Blue Palace, though! LOL. Apparently she did actually notice that that case of Firebrand Wine went missing. ;D

Next time

Still not ready Illusion-wise for the warehouse or the embassy! So I feel visits to Windhelm and Markarth coming on, to do the next couple of Guild jobs. And if I do the one in Markarth, that could set me up to start working on getting the thaneship there.

I’ll also have to consider running the thaneships in Morthal and Dawnstar, too, just because that’s another way to get some money.

Screenshots

Editing to add

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