In Which Shenner Acquires Mehrunes’ Razor

Very eventful session! Mostly all about acquiring the pieces of Mehrunes’ Razor and then assembling it, but also with a side helping of the beginning of the Crypt of the Heart quest, which will lead me to get Ebony Spell Knight armor!

Also, I unlocked Daedric and Dragon Smithing! \0/

Highlights

• Play date: 7/2/2022
• Session number in this run: 30
• Picked up at Windstad
• Boinged from there to Myrwatch to see if I left anything interesting there
• Chaurus by the entrance respawned, but either Gogh or Rulnik got it before I could reach it
• A few minor materials left in Myrwatch but nothing I urgently needed
• Boinged next to Dawnstar
• Fished at Dawnstar’s fishing spot and caught a few unusual fish I hadn’t seen before
• Then talked to Silus about his museum and getting the pieces of the Razor
• Boinged to Morthal
• Dragon showed up, so killed it; talked to Jorgen and paid him for the Razor hilt
• Fished at the fishing spat just north in the marshes
• (Everything after this point is not entirely complete, but in rough order)
• Boinged to Hendraheim and dropped stuff off in exterior chest, including dragon bits
• Left the Morokei mask in the basement and assorted clothing items in the wardrobe
• Found a Block skill book I hadn’t realized was in the place, awesome
• Also found that I had a boatload of ingredients stashed there that I’d forgotten about, wow
• Boinged to mage college and yoinked all the ingredients in the alchemy area there so I could merge my stock
• Boinged to Falkreath and sold things to Solaf
• Rode from there to Cracked Tusk Keep
• Didn’t bother to sneak what with the full force of Team Dragonborn
• And Rulnik is definitely not throwing the Sparks spell, he’s knocking corpses a considerable way when he takes down opponents with lightning :O
• Ran the place without much trouble
• Overloaded but got through the traps protecting the shards (no Telekinesis yet on this alt)
• Boinged to Lakeview and did a boatload of alchemy
• Leveled up to 41; took Stamina bump and Merchant perk in Speech
• Boinged to Whiterun to sell things; came back out to see if Khajiit were present, tents were there but the Khajiit were not in them
• Rode a little to the west along the road thinking I would catch up with the Khajiit but didn’t see them
• Spotted what looked like a Dunmer in steel soldier armor going the other way, might have been a mercenary?
• Boinged to Gjukar’s Monument to get onto a better track to aim for the Reach
• Rode near but evaded Serpent’s Bluff Redoubt
• Discovered Moldering Ruins for the map and fought the exterior vampire thralls
• Re-rode through Soljund’s Sinkhole
• Skimmed around the edge of Karthspire and killed the hagraven but did not engage the camp at large
• Rode around the edge of the water till I made it onto the road by Blind Cliff Cave
• Headed west on the road from there
• Fought the three Forsworn at Kolskeggr
• Found the Khajiit! Bought things from Ri’saad including more amber and madness
• Headed on into Markarth
• OHNOEZ a Forsworn is trying to kill somebody! Tried to queue up Slow Time Shout and a dagger to hit Weylin, but didn’t take him out in time, damn
• Triggered initial convo with Eltrys re: the attack and my alleged ‘note’
• Sold stuff to Lisbet
• Got a room at the Silver-Blood Inn, and derped around looking for things to read to trigger quests
• Found the looter’s note for the dwarven plate armor quest (which may be a problem, see below)
• Also found the Crypt of the Heart book to start the Spell Knight quest, awesome
• Spotted an NPC i didn’t recognize, Lynea, who is apparently involved with fishing quests
• Headed out on Swift Wind to try to reach Hag Rock Redoubt
• Encountered en route: two cave bears
• Also found the Forsworn near the knight’s grave for the Spell Knight quest, and fought and dispatched them
• Got the shaman’s note saying where Simon’s corrupted heart is: Karthspire
• Found a nearby couple of dead Spell Knights and yoinked their iron and steel armor
• Got a little turned around though and wound up fighting three cultists
• Decided at that point to boing back to Markarth; sold assorted stuff to Ghorza and Bothela
• Boinged back to Lakeview to drop off a bunch of stuff and unload before returning to the Reach
• Made a madness dagger! Gave my elven dagger to Rulnik
• Dropped off the Spell Knight gear
• Came out of Lakeview to find a giant in the yard, so had to dispatch him
• Returned to Purewater Run to get to Hag Rock Redoubt; killed once by Forsworn, and thrown all the way back to Lakeview
• Re-running the place, opted for stealth to at least get to the ruins part of the lair, but had trouble with the part where I came out of the ruins; got killed a few times by a briarheart
• But finally got the better of him once I remembered to whap him with my shield a few times, and then hit him with the madness sword
• Finally made it through and got the pommel of the dagger; took out the hagraven and final briarheart; got word for the Dismay Shout off the wall
• Fast traveled straight to Dawnstar from there
• Game locked up on me while I was trying to fish, so had to restart
• Re-did coming to Dawnstar
• Got flyby dragon which nonetheless triggered fight music and reaction dialogue, but the dragon never landed?
• Fished again; got the Ring of Kynareth \0/
• Also got an arctic char which appeared to show up because it was snowing
• Went in to talk to Silus
• Boinged to Stonehills to try to get to the shrine; got turned around a few times and finally had to come at it by way of boinging to Frostmere Crypt
• Cleared a few corundum veins
• Fought snow bear on the way up to the stairs
• Shit, Silus, I knew you were a douche, and now i’m going to have to kill you–NOT BECAUSE YOU TOLD ME TO, DAGON, SO FUCK OFF. And now I have the Razor!
• Raided the shrine and cleared it out; killed all four of Dagon’s daedra and made off with the loot and the daedra hearts
• Boinged yet again back to Lakeview
• Did a boatload of smithing, alchemy, and enchanting
• Leveled up to 42; took Health bump and Daedric Smithing perk
• Leveled up to 43; took Magicka bump and Dragon Smithing perk \0/
• Improved the Razor and also Ruin’s Edge since I had a bunch of daedra hearts
• Finally was able to work on improving the daedric and studded dragonscale armors, but Remnant still seems best to wear for now
• Boinged to Whiterun to start selling stuff; sold a bunch of gear to Elrindir and Adrianne
• Bought five rounds of Alchemy training from Arcadia
• Saved there for the night

Commentary

First thing I wanted to note about the highlights above is that I probably didn’t get everything in the right order of action. Because I boinged around a lot in this session, and probably lost track here and there of what places I boinged to when. But I tried to take notes that at least matched the rough flow of what I was doing!

Revisiting Hendraheim, after not having been there in several sessions, also underscored two interesting things:

1. There was a Block skill book just lying around the place, that I had not noticed before because I hadn’t gone over all the various books
2. I’d also completely forgotten I had a huge cache of ingredients there

Item 1 suggests strongly to me that with all these new homes available in the AE/Creation content, it is a very good idea to actually doublecheck any and all books lying around. In case some of them may in fact be skill books!

Item 2 points at a thing that was already kind of a problem with vanilla Skyrim, i.e., you can get so many different homes that it is impossible to keep track of where you left something. In the Special Edition and earlier, you can get a total of eight official homes, as well as a scattering of other locales that you can use as homes even if they aren’t actual houses (quarters at the College of Winterhold, quarters in Jorrvaskr, a bed in the Thieves Guild, and such).

The AE content just adds more to the problem. So far I’ve gotten Goldenhills Plantation, Hendraheim, Tundra Homestead, Dead Man’s Dread, Myrwatch, and Bloodchill Manor, so that’s six more homes on top of the existing ones. And there are even a couple more homes I haven’t seen yet.

All of which leads me to, boy howdy is it tough to keep track of where your stuff is if you’re not paying attention. So far I’m kind of using Lakeview as my “home base”, and most of my stuff I’m bringing there. But even with Lakeview more or less mostly built out, there’s not really storage space enough for everything. And the newer homes do have the advantage of all the nice display spots for the various special items.

And I’d been kind of using Hendraheim as my “home base” for that. But I still don’t like Hendraheim’s location very much. So last several sessions in particular, I’ve neglected going by there.

It has occurred to me, though, that there is one scenario in which having so many homes might actually be super useful–and that’s if you’re playing Survival Mode. Having twenty some odd homes that you outright own, and/or quarters where you have access to a bed and storage, could be extremely helpful in getting from one place to another in a situation where Skyrim itself is actively trying to kill you.

(Note to Future Me: plan for that! This may also include strategies about getting homes I wouldn’t otherwise normally consider claiming, e.g., Anise’s Cabin.)

For now though, even with the homes Shenner already has, I’m easily losing track of where I leave stuff. So right now I think I’m going to stick with Lakeview being my unofficial “home base”. It’s also got a bedroom wing, so I can actually plunk children there once I adopt a couple. And there are enough beds now that there’s room for the on-site housecarl (Rayya), the on-site steward (and extra housecarl, Lydia), me, my spouse, and kids.

Interesting side note about the beds–Lydia’s been sleeping in the double bed upstairs rather than one of the single beds where I usually see her sleep. I do not know what I did that made her claim that bed? I don’t know if this is a consequence of the bugfix patch or what.

Meanwhile, still trying to get a better idea of Rulnik’s capabilities. I have now seen him zap opponents with his lightning spell and send them fucking flying, which is really fun to watch. So I’m pretty sure the dude is not throwing the Sparks spell. Which means it’s either Lightning Bolt or Thunderbolt, and I’m not sure which.

Main thing I noted during running Cracked Tusk Keep: I really need to get the Telekinesis spell, which means I need to get my Alteration up enough that Tolfdir will actually sell it to me. One consequence of the PC build not being as dark as the Switch build–I haven’t had to cast Candlelight nearly so much! So need to work on leveling Alteration some more, probably via Stoneflesh. And I need to go run Halted Stream Camp so I can pick up the Transmute spell.

And a thing that’s particularly obvious while running a parallel playthrough with a thief: not having access to fences makes it a lot tougher to sell stuff. So this is telling me that running Shenner’s Speech up higher so that I can unlock Investor and Master Trader perks is going to be kind of critical. Hence working on that this round, with unlocking the Merchant perk. It’s a step in the right direction to be able to sell anything to anybody!

Another consequence of running parallel playthroughs: losing track of which locations I’ve been to with which character. I was a little surprised to realize I hadn’t been to Markarth yet at all with this alt. Which meant I also hadn’t launched the initial stages of the Forsworn Conspiracy, either.

This time through, I tried to see if I could save Margret from being killed by Weylin, but was not successful. This might be a consequence of my combat time being slower than I like on this machine.

So at least now Shenner’s done the opening stages of Forsworn Conspiracy. I’ll swing back to it soon enough. For now I focused instead on derping around the Silver-Blood Inn, since I knew of at least two quests with plot hooks to be found by reading things.

One of them was Mightier Than the Sword, which I may have doomed before I even started it? Because this one wants me to go explore Reachwind Eyrie, and I’ve already been there, which means I’ve already grabbed the dwarven plate armor that was there. Oops. I’m going to have to see if it’s been long enough since my previous visit that the place has respawned.

Checking my earlier Shenner posts, I see that my first visit to Reachwind Eyrie was when I was running the Remnants plot, and that was on 6/20. About two weeks ago. What’s not clear to me is, how much time has elapsed in game since then. Reachwind Eyrie has a respawn time of 10 days and I’m pretty sure it should have respawned by now. I’ll have to check. If not I’ll be borked for finishing this quest out.

The other quest, Crypt of the Heart, is the one I am way more interested in. This is the one that leads you to getting the Ebony Spell Knight armor, which may become my new favorite heavy armor as soon as I can get it. 😀

However, it took me a bit of wandering around through the various guest rooms before I finally found the relevant book to read. I only belatedly realized that the book was called Crypt of the Heart – Draft, which strongly suggested that its author was actively working on that book in the inn. And I, uh, sorta kinda walked off with the draft. Oops.

The NPC in question, Ariana Dumas, doesn’t seem to actually exist in the game. But that doesn’t let me off the hook for stealing her work! I think I’ll have to go back and leave it in the room where I found it on general principles, just because hello, fellow writer here! And I wouldn’t want to be the cause of a writer losing her manuscript in real life, so I don’t want to do it in the game either. Heh.

(Definitely questions here of why the various books and notes you have to read to get access to these new quests are stuffed in a few out of the way corners of the various inns. In this case I had to actively go into an open guest room. Which seems problematic to say the least. I mean, what innkeeper is going to let people just walk in and out of various rooms that they haven’t actually paid to occupy?)

Last item of interest derping around the inn was that I spotted an NPC I didn’t recognize, Lynea. She is, it turns out, going to be important as I progress through the Fishing quests. Hi, Lynea, I’ll come back and talk to you later!

Once I set out from the inn, I was not actively intending to pursue the Spell Knight quest–I was targeting getting the pommel of the Razor. Turned out, though, that I was going in the right direction for both. Found three Forsworn near Dushnikh Yal, and that turned out to be the site of Simon Rodayne’s grave, relevant to that quest.

(Side note: Simon Rodayne being a Breton, I am totally assuming that ‘Simon’ in this case is pronounced as it would be in French!)

So I took out the Forsworn and found the necessary note on the shaman, as well as the dead bodies of a couple of the Spell Knights nearby. Which let me get examples of the Steel and Iron forms of the Spell Knight armor. Which, of course, promptly overloaded me again because that shit is heavy, yo.

Noted as well that the shaman’s note directed me to Karthspire to find Simon Rodayne’s heart. Ever so conveniently, I’ll be headed there soon anyway for main plot purposes. I daresay this bumps up the priority for my running the Thalmor Embassy with Shenner! Just so I can get to the point of being able to run Sky Haven Temple. And I’m three levels away now from 46, which will not only let me get the best Dragonbane, it’ll also let me run the Cause quest.

Being overloaded at that point, though, was a problem. I didn’t want to try to get the pommel of the Razor in that state. So i boinged back to Markarth to sell a bunch of things, and then boinged back to Lakeview to drop off a bunch of things that I didn’t sell. That got me back to a point of being prepared to go after the pommel properly.

Going after the pommel is always a bit of a challenge, just because Hag Rock Redoubt is huge and full of Forsworn. Stealth is really kind of not an option when I have two active followers who can both summon things, so I tried to do the frontal assault kind of approach. But the danger with that is, the Forsworn. They are formidable and if I’m not careful they will totally stab me to death. And as I’ve already lamented on this run, I have trouble with keeping up with multi-opponent combat on this PC.

So I had to do a mix of stealth, letting my followers and their summoned entities take the brunt of the fighting, and ranged weapons when I needed to jump in myself. Because I’ve also found that Gogh’s storm atronach has a bad habit of getting in my way, which leads me to hitting it by accident, and pissing it off. At which point it is no longer under Gogh’s control. Oops.

Once I finally got the pommel, I was able to return to Dawnstar. First time I arrived there, though, I had to restart the game when it locked up on me during fishing. Just as I was fishing up an artifact, too!

Which was very possibly the Ring of Kynareth–because when I came back with the restart, and redid my fishing, I got that ring. Which will be super helpful for moving the fishing quests along some more, given that I need to find rainy weather fish now. 😀

And it was something like 3am game time when I went into Silus’ house to talk to him about bringing him back the pieces of the Razor. He was wide awake, too. Which, LOL. I’m both amused and slightly creeped out by that. Dude, do you ever sleep? But then, this is the guy who wants to resurrect the Mythic Dawn, so it wouldn’t surprise me if he stays up late plotting how to get Dagon’s favor.

Maybe because I haven’t run the Razor quest enough times yet, I had trouble actually finding a good route to Dagon’s shrine. I initially tried getting at it via Stonehills, and then from Frostmere Crypt, and rode around in a few circles before I finally found the correct path to the stairs.

Let it also be noted for the record that even though I’m running the bugfix patch, the little bug/exploit with where you stand around the altar is still in play. Because I was able to evade Silus’ begging me to spare him, and have him go straight to “I won’t go down without a fight!”

Which means, now I have the Razor. And was able to tell Dagon to fuck off. Killed all four of his dremora, both outside and inside the shrine, and then looted the fuck out of the place. Because there is tasty loot to be had!

Last but not least, I closed this session with a boatload of crafting, and got two more levels of that. And, critically, both Daedric and Dragon Smithing. Which means I can now finally make Dragon gear, but I can also make Golden and Dark as well. I will need to compare dragon vs. madness vs. dark weapons, I think, and see what gets me the best bang for my buck before I make it over to Solstheim and can start playing with stalhrim!

Next time

I’ve got only three levels to go until 46, which strongly suggests the Thalmor Embassy needs to be on my agenda next! But before I do that, I better level up my magic some more. I do not have the Quiet Casting perk yet on this alt, which means I will be heard if I try to throw Invisibility and Muffle on myself. Which means I’m going to have to tear through the place in full on rampage mode.

And y’know, I think Shenner, a Nord and a Talos worshipper, is going to be entirely okay with that.

Screenshots

Editing to add

• 11/22/2023: Restored missing gallery.