In Which Faanshi Forges the Gauldur Amulet and Aetherial Crown

A return to my Khajiit thief, in which I clear out a couple of loose ends before I have Faanshi run off to join the Dawnguard!

Highlights

• Play date: 7/5/2022
• Session number in this run: 33
• Started in Lakeview
• Boinged to Dushnikh Yal
• Frost Dragon! Fought it with Lydia, couple of the Orcs came out to witness
• Went over to Reachwind Eyrie and cleared it, but got overloaded from loot
• So went back to the stronghold; smelted the dwarven stuff I found, then sold loot items to the smith, and dragon bits to the alchemist
• Went back out of the stronghold and saw dead Blood Dragon, not the same dragon as the one I’d just killed, so I seem to have a dragon stalking situation going on here
• Hoofed it from there to Reachwater Rock; ran the place; reforged the amulet
• Came back out and boinged to Honningbrew; sold stuff to Mallus
• Went into Whiterun and sold a few things there as well; bought a bunch of iron
• Boinged back to Lakeview to drop stuff off
• Boinged to Battle-Born Farm to get within hoofing distance of Raldbthar
• Hound a hunter shooting at passing game, and also found another Frost Dragon!
• While the Frost Dragon was attacking, the hunter then thought it was a good idea to ask me in the middle of the battle if I had a potion of Cure Disease to keep him from turning into a vampire
• Then tried to head towards Shearpoint at which point I realized Lydia wasn’t done shooting at things yet
• Surprise Apprentice Ice Mage! Not sure if he’d run over from Fellglow Keep or if he was one half of an ice vs. fire battle? Didn’t find an equivalent Apprentice Fire Mage
• Dispatched him, then tried again to get past Shearpoint
• Wasn’t sure if the dragon we’d just fought was from Shearpoint but, answer: NO, because got hit with a Blood Dragon there, too
• So with two dragons’ worth of dragon bits, very overloaded
• Boinged back to Whiterun and dropped off a bunch of stuff in Breezehome, then went right back out again and boinged straight to Shearpoint
• Hoofed it to Raldbthar
• Went past Irkngthand while climbing over rocks, and heard “you picked a bad time to get lost, friend” off to the side, so clearly the exterior Irkngthand bandits had respawned–but they didn’t come after me
• Made it to front of Raldbthar
• Spotted distant dragon, looked dark in color, possibly Viinturuth? Didn’t get close enough to engage though
• Threw Lydia and dremora at exterior bandits, then got in and ran the place
• Leveled up to 50 while I was in there; took Health bump and Dwarven Smithing perk
• Actually used Nightingale Subterfuge successfully this time, smacking the two bandits by Alain Dufont; one of the other bandits killed him, but another of them came running up to fight with me and Lyds
• Got Lyds past both spinning blade traps okay, not to mention myself (thank you, Become Ethereal Shout, also Lydia’s ebony armor)
• Checked a couple of extra nooks and crannies this time through, including the chaurus pen in the boss chamber with the centurion, and got extra chest loot
• Threw the dremora at the centurion at the end, and they knocked it into the water so had to dive to loot it (not a problem with Volsung)
• Got into the back of the chamber and found Katria and the fourth shard
• Made it out again overloaded, but got back to Whiterun by way of potion quaffing; sold a bunch of stuff to get under weight
• Went to Dragonsreach and used Farengar’s enchanter; destroyed glass armor to learn a Restoration enchantment
• Enchanted a bunch of jewelry and took it down to sell to Belethor
• Boinged down to Lakeview and dropped off more stuff
• Came back out thinking I’d go head out for the Aetherium Forge–only BANDITS
• So had to throw Lydia and dremora at them, and that got me a bunch of loot; boinged to Honningbrew and sold it
• Boinged to Breezehome and picked up all personal items to bring to Lakeview as home base
• Boinged back to Lakeview to drop things off again
• Boinged to mage college; got five rounds of Destruction training with Faralda
• Boinged to Haemar’s Shame to hoof it to Bthalft
• Coming around the bend in the trail, immediately saw a crowd that turned out to be the three mead revelers and a Dark Brotherhood assassin
• The revelers at least survived this encounter and gave me mead, so there’s that, but seriously you guys GO PARTY SOMEWHERE SAFER
• Killed a cave bear en route to Bthalft
• Stopped at Alchemist’s Shack and looted the ingredients
• Took out the three bandits at Bthalft
• Hi Katria! Let’s find us a forge
• We found us a forge <3
• And I checked more nooks and crannies and got additional loot after Katria laid herself to rest, including an Amulet of Kynareth
• Got out of the place overloaded and quaff traveled my way back to Lakeview
• Did a little smithing and alchemy to nudge the level up closer to 51
• Saved for the night

Commentary

Fairly dragon-heavy action in this session, despite not having high-stakes session objectives! Two different Frost Dragons, and the dead Blood Dragon that I’m pretty sure was from my original visit to Dushnikh Yal in this run. And the extra Blood Dragon that showed up at Shearpoint, since the place respawned. And the dragon I spotted in the distance when I made it to Raldbthar.

The hunter asking me for a Cure Disease potion right in the middle of the battle was pretty lollerstakes, though.

“Khajiit thinks perhaps you can wait five minutes? She is occupied!”

Aside from dragons, this session was also notable for being the first time I successfully used Nightingale Subterfuge. I kind of feel like it’s super morally dubious to use the same power that Mercer Frey uses to fuck with Brynjolf. But I also kind of feel like Faanshi probably has come to realize that in a world that has many, many ways to kill her rather squishy Khajiit self, taking any advantage she can to stay alive is one she’s kind of okay with. Even if it means making her enemies fight each other instead of her.

(I suspect she probably wishes frequently that she’d had this power back when she was fighting to save her caravan!)

Meanwhile, that “you’ll make a fine rug, cat!” insult that you can get if you’re playing a Khajiit hits a bit differently, coming from an Argonian! Ran into the Dark Brotherhood assassin while approaching a group of mead revelers–which meant that the revelers also reacted to the Argonian coming at me. They did not, of course, actually help. They started yelling for somebody to do something, and by “somebody” the game means “me”.

“Khajiit has this, drinkers of spirits. Please to stop yelling while she is stabbing the lizard, who in her opinion will make excellent boots.”

<STAB>

But overall, nothing new here, just good ground I’ve covered before. Still loves me some Katria plot. <3 And now I will need to think about what Standing Stone ability to put onto the Aetherial Crown.

Next time

Kinda lacking on thaneships even though I’m at level 50 and almost to 51, so I think I’ll go play with that for a bit? Maybe go after Morthal’s and Dawnstar’s, since those are both pretty easy to get and I could do them all in the same session.

Screenshots

Editing to add

• 11/22/2023: Restored missing gallery.