In Which Faanshi Helps the Blades and Meets a Dragon

Continuing action with the main game plot here, basically running straight from going into the Ratway to find Esbern, up through meeting Paarthurnax, and then going back to the mage college to ask Urag how to find the Elder Scroll.

With a side helping of, as always, dragon fighting!

This post was for play done on Tuesday 6/28.

Highlights

• Play date: 6/28/2022
• Session number in this run: 31
• Started at the entrance to the Ratway, which I then started running
• Took out the Thalmor agents with dremora, then found Esbern in the warrens
• Got a couple more Thalmor agents on the way out of the Ratway
• And Shavari as well who actually found me in the Ratway as opposed to out on the docks
• Got Esbern safely out and to Delphine, with the one caveat that I saw Esbern pick a fight with his own storm atronach, LOLOLOL
• Tried to set out with Esbern and Delphine from Riverwood, but distracted by guards fighting a thief! LOL, Esbern kept throwing lightning at the thief as well
• Esbern clearly does not take kindly to thieves; Khajiit trusts he is diplomatically ignoring what armor she was wearing?
• The guards however were not, as one of them said, literally as I was pulling the loot off the thief, that all the guards know I’m in the Guild
• Then tried to set out west from Riverwood–only to be killed by Ancient Dragon not far from Lakeview, fucking thing got me twice, thrown back to just exiting Riverwood
• Third time tried to just fast travel straight to Lakeview because I realized I didn’t have the Nightingale Bow and needed to fix that problem, only the Ancient Dragon showed up there
• Scrambled inside and grabbed things even as Lydia tried to react to the dragon outside
• Got back outside again aaaaaand it got me
• Last time through actually finally took it out with help of Rayya and dremora
• But Esbern and Delphine vanished, so I did a little bit of equipment gathering as well as alchemy at Lakeview
• Then boinged to Whiterun and sold a few things, also bought void salts from Arcadia; improved the Nightingale armor at Warmaiden’s
• Fast traveled to Blind Cliff Cave to get within range of Karthspire
• Came in the back way, aaaaaaand Blood Dragon attacked the camp, but it didn’t see me so I was free to duck into Karthspire
• Esbern and Delpine respawned just inside so I ran the place as per usual
• Got the pointer to get the shout from the Greybeards; also got the Blades armor and Dragonbane
• Came back out safely but the entire camp was still pissed off at the dragon, so threw storm atronachs and dremora at everybody until the dremora wiped out the camp, then threw storm atronachs when the dragon finally landed again
• Overloaded from dragon bits so quaffed a potion to fast travel back to Lakeview
• Attempted but failed to improve the Nightingale Armor; did improve Dragonbane; put the Blades armor in the armory
• Boinged to Honningbrew to sell a few more things
• Boinged to High Hrothgar to check in about Dragonrend
• Got Paarthurnax to point me at the Elder Scroll; also got him to teach me about meditating on Fus
• Got the Zelda goodies, and the Notched Pickaxe off the very top of the mountain
• Boinged to mage college
• Queried Urag about the Elder Scroll and got pointed at Septimus
• Got five rounds of Destruction training with Faralda
• Bought a bunch of spellbooks from Faralda, Drevis, Phinis, and Tolfdir
• Tried to see if Colette had any spellbooks I wanted but couldn’t find her
• Checked Arch-Mage quarters for void salts
• Boinged back to Lakeview, and this time improved the Nightingale Armor some more
• Saved there for the night

Commentary

This session was pretty much a straight shot through a notable portion of the main plotline, starting point of “finding Esbern in the Ratway”, up through “go ask Urag at the College of Winterhold how to find an Elder Scroll”. As such, this is all familiar territory for me by now.

But still, it’s possible for things to happen to make me LOL. Case in point: escorting Esbern out of the Ratway, and in the aftermath of fighting the Thalmor agent Shavari, seeing Esbern fighting his own storm atronach.

Esbern, sir, I respect you as a loremaster and keeper of the knowledge of all things Dragon. Also, you are voiced by Max von Sydow and you have more gravitas in your little finger than I do in my entire Dragonborn body. But that said?

Generally not a good idea to summon an atronach, and then get in its line of fire. And not fair to the atronach to get pissed off at it when it hits you because you weren’t looking where you were going!

Just sayin’. 😆

And see, this is the problem with throwing storm atronachs around in close quarters like the Ratway. It is super easy for ranged magical attacks to hit somebody you don’t intend to hit in tight space like that. Which is why, if I’ve got friendly followers around, I do not summon my own atronachs unless they’ve actually got room to operate! I punt to dremora instead for close melee fighting. Esbern, however, does not have that option; according to his wiki page, his summoning ability only goes up to storm atronachs.

Esbern wasn’t done throwing magic around either, once I tried to start escorting him and Delphine out of Riverwood. Came out to find the guards fighting a thief, and Esbern got in on that action, zapping the guy hard with lightning. Sent him flying right down Riverwood’s main street, too. Impressive!

“Khajiit sees that you clearly do not care for thieves, old man. She trusts you are diplomatically ignoring her current choice of armor, and at any rate, you have done this one a service by eliminating a clearly inferior member of her Guild.”

This session, I also learned that it’s possible to be able to duck into your own house during a dragon attack, and at least for a minute or two, have the fight music still playing! But it stopped before I could get back outside with my weaponry, at least briefly, and I heard Lydia throw a “guess it was nothing after all” line. Didn’t take long for the dragon to notice me again though once I got back outside!

As always, I do love talking to Paarthurnax. And I kind of feel like that Faanshi may be more philosophical a character than her predecessors? I have this feeling that she probably enjoyed debating Paarthurnax the most of any character I’ve played so far. <3

Next time

Legit torn! Current options I’m considering:

• Continuing with main plot action, and going to talk to Septimus and queuing up heading into Alftand
• Starting Dawnguard
• Still lacking a couple of thaneships with this alt; Faanshi doesn’t have Proudspire or Heljarchen yet, or the thaneship in Winterhold

Screenshots

Editing to add

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