In Which Faanshi Becomes Thane of Hjaalmarch and Gets the Wabbajack

Lower-tier action in this session, involving running the Laid to Rest plot in order to acquire the thaneship in Hjaalmarch, and then heading over to Solitude to begin working on the thaneship of Haafingar.

Highlights

• Play date: 7/7/2022
• Session number in this run: 34
• Started off at Lakeview
• Boinged off to Whiterun to sell some stuff
• Boinged to Morthal to run the Laid to Rest plot
• One small difference: saw Hroggar out and about by Jorgen’s mill, so stopped to talk to him just to see what he’d say, which turned out to be a nice creepy little detail to add to the plot (see below)
• Flyby dragon on the way to breaking into Alva’s house
• Played on through to the point of reaching Movarth’s Lair, no real problems particularly with ability to summon two dremora, who made fairly short work of Movarth and his minions
• Odd though to have the villagers NOT actually do the conversation properly when the war party reaches the lair, after seeing that work correctly on the PC build
• Got overloaded at the end of the dungeon as I usually do
• Leveled up to 51 midway through the lair; took Health bump, and Allure perk in Speech
• Tromped slowly back to Morthal because I had only one Elixir of Strength left and didn’t want to use it at the wrong time
• Reported back to the Jarl that the vampire was dead, and then got her pointer to be thane
• I’d already fulfilled two of the necessary favors, so went back outside and found Idgrod the Younger to get the letter about her brother
• Then spent the potion and boinged to Whiterun
• Sold a bunch of stuff to Adrianne and Belethor to get unburdened
• Then went to go drop off the letter with Danica; got five rounds of Restoration training with her
• Came back out and boinged back to Morthal
• Hurray, I’m thane! HI VALDIMAR
• Bought the land for Windstad Manor; headed over there and built the Small House structure
• Dropped off remaining building materials in my inventory in the inside chest
• Boinged to Solitude; sold more things to Gulum-Ei, then headed to the Blue Palace
• Stopped to talk to Dervenin on the way and triggered the Mind of Madness quest
• Not thane of Haafingar yet so didn’t want to do my prior action of just asking Falk for the key to the Pelagius Wing; did talk to him about Wolfskull Cave though and got the quest to go clean it out
• But before that, stopped to talk to Erdi about getting into the Pelagius Wing; talked her into giving me the key (thank you Amulet of Articulation)
• So ran the quest, and now I have the Wabbajack
• Came back out from that and then headed off to get to Wolfskull Cave
• Attacked by Elder Dragon en route, fire breather, but did not kill the dragon—got in several good hits on it but didn’t see it actually crash and start burning
• Also heard Taron Dreth show up, and he confronted me about the crown, and sicced his guards on me, which went about as well for him as it usually does 😉
• Looked around a little for any sign of the dragon but nope, so proceeded to Wolfskull Cave
• Saw a mercenary coming from the other direction near the cave, and who yelled HELP before drawing her weapons and going at the skeletons coming up behind me
• Then she went on her way and Lyds and i started running Wolfskull Cave; not hard with dremora
• Got partway through and saved for the night

Commentary

Everything I did this time is familiar territory at this point, but there are still at least a couple of new details I can talk about!

This time through on the Laid to Rest plot, I actually spotted Hroggar out and about in Morthal. Specifically, at the grindstone by Jorgen’s mill. This was a bit confusing at first because Hroggar and Jorgen were wearing the exact same clothes–so at first I wondered if I’d triggered some sort of bizarre bug that somehow duplicated Jorgen.

(Which, given Skyrim’s history of being Buggy As Fuck, would absolutely not have surprised me!)

But when I got closer I was able to see that it was Hroggar at the grindstone, while Jorgen was working on chopping wood. So just to see what happened, I stopped to talk to Hroggar.

The one dialogue option I was given was to tell him I’d seen his daughter’s ghost at the remains of their house. I expect a Khajiit version of the resulting conversation would have gone like this, and this is me just changing my lines, not Hroggar’s:

Faanshi: This one saw the ghost of your daughter in the remains of your home.

Hroggar: Really? How nice.

Faanshi, blinking: Perhaps you did not hear Khajiit correctly? The ghost of your daughter. In the burned ruin of your home. Are you not concerned?

Hroggar: I have Alva to take care of now. I don’t need Helgi anymore.

It was a short exchange, but a nice creepy little touch. I can imagine Hroggar being kind of flat and lifeless as he delivers these lines.

Meanwhile, I also gotta say, after running this same plot on the PC build, it was slightly disappointing to bring the war party to the lair and not have them actually do the conversation along the lines of “we really don’t want to run headlong into a cave full of fucking vampires, maybe we better let these two strangers who are armed to the teeth go in and take care of this for us.”

So yeah, really wish I had access to the USSEP on the Switch. Even if I couldn’t install any other mod, I’d like to have that one in particular.

Did one minor difference with the Wabbajack quest this time through, too. When I’ve run this before, it’s always been after I’ve become thane in Solitude, so I’m able to convince Falk Firebeard to give me the key to the Pelagius Wing. This time through, I actually talked to one of the Blue Palace servants instead, Erdi. She’s the NPC I’ve periodically walked past and heard making envious commentary about how I must have so many adventures, heh. I was easily able to talk her into giving me a key, thank you, Amulet of Articulation.

So I went and got the Wabbajack. Mostly I do this plot still because I do find Sheogorath entertaining, even though the Wabbajack itself never strikes me as particularly useful. But I’ll take my entertainment where I can get it. <3

The dragon encounter I had on the way from Solitude to Wolfskull Cave was notable in that it was one of those where I never actually killed the dragon. Partly because it did the “fly off and start attacking other nearby hostiles” thing, but also partly because while it was attacking me, Taron Dreth and his mercenaries also showed up. And the dragon vanished in the middle of Taron demanding to know where I’d gotten my aetherium crown from.

This went about as well for him as it always does, LOL.

After Lydia and I were done taking care of that little problem, I looked around a little further for any sign of the dragon. But nope, it had noped right off. I don’t know whether the nearby Stormcloak camp wound up bringing it down, or what?

So off I went to Wolfskull Cave, to move the Potema plot along. I didn’t get all the way through, just because it was getting laid and I had to log off for bed!

Next time

Finishing up Wolfskull Cave will of course be the first action. But then I’ll have to wait for a subsequent level up before Falk calls me back to do Potema Round 2. So while I’m waiting for that, going to Dawnstar and running the nightmare plot, and setting up to be thane of the Pale, will likely be next.

Slightly longer term plan, over the next four or five sessions with Faanshi, is probably going to be finishing up the thaneships for Haafingar and the Pale, and then heading off after the Elder Scroll for the main plot.

And I should doublecheck how many more Stones of Barenziah I need!

Screenshots

Editing to add

• 11/22/2023: Restored missing gallery.