In Which Faanshi Becomes Thane of the Pale

This is a double session post, to cover everything done to let Faanshi become thane of the Pale: running the Waking Nightmare plot, killing the obligatory giant, running a couple of favor quests to get the full set for becoming thane, and buying the land for Heljarchen Hall. Also, I got a couple of favor quests at the mage college resolved, and began the search for the Elder Scroll by talking to Septimus at his outpost.

Highlights

Monday’s play

Play date: 7/11/2022
Session number in this run: 36
Started in Proudspire
Took the cart from Solitude to Dawnstar
Went straight into the inn to talk to Erandur and commence the nightmares plot
Killed a couple of ice wraiths on the way to Nightcaller Temple
Got killed by the frost trolls once we reached the temple 😛
Thrown back to coming out of the inn
Going to Nightcaller Temple, Take Two: this time just one ice wraith
And this time I called up the dremora for frost troll assistance once I arrived
Ran the temple with no problems, particularly with calling up the dremora to help with the hostile Orcs and Vaermina Devotees
Took a couple of the other dialogue options this time through, just because my sense of Faanshi is that she’s a little less kindly disposed to trusting random strangers even if they are priests of Mara
Came back out again with Lydia and hoofed it back down to Dawnstar
Came around the corner and saw initial conversation between Skald and Brina
Went in to talk to the Jarl to report that the nightmare problem had been sorted
Got him to point me at the task to go kill a giant
Tumble Arch Pass this time, as with Shenner’s run
Fast traveled to Shearpoint to get close to there
A dragon had respawned at Shearpoint, but I dropped into Sneak and didn’t get close to it, so didn’t wake it up
Made it down to Tumble Arch Pass
Called up both dremora and took a potshot at the giant to initiate combat, but only hit it a couple of times
The giant actually went over and got in a fight with a frost troll and a snowy sabre cat, which I didn’t discover until I saw it register as dead without my being near it, or the dremora or Lydia either
The mammoth at the camp was very much alive though and I had to go invisible to avoid pissing it off
Looted the giant, the frost troll, and the snowy sabre cat, then boinged back to Dawnstar
Got townsfolk reacting to dragon but it turned out to be a flyby, so the storm atronachs I called up weren’t actually needed
Waited four hours until 8am and also to let my atronachs dissipate, so I wouldn’t walk through the town with them
Got Skald’s offer to become thane
Paused there and saved for the night

Wednesday’s play

Play date: 7/13/2022
Session number in this run: 37
Picked up where I left off in Dawnstar
Tried to get favor quests from Frida and Rustleif but they didn’t have the right conversation prompts, so I got past this problem by just doing mining in the two mines in the town
Mines were quite large, and not a sign of draugr or spiders, LOL, is that supposed to happen in a mine in Skyrim? 😀
Went back to Skald and got the thaneship; also bought the land for Heljarchen
Boinged to Volunruud to get nearby
Built Small House structure and a firepit inside for when Gregor shows up
Boinged to Lakeview
Did some alchemy to try to get to level 52 but didn’t quite make it
Went looking for Kharjo to give him his amulet back; found him at Dawnstar in fact
Then realized i did have a favor quest active: Onmund’s for the mage college
Boinged to mage college
Ancient Dragon! Killed it with Lydia, storm atronachs, and Onmund; thank you, Onmund!
Went into the Arch-Mage’s quarters and grabbed a bunch of ingredients off the shelves
Bought Paralyze, Ebonyflesh, and Detect Undead spells from Tolfdir
Convinced Enthir to just give me Onmund’s amulet (thank you Amulet of Articulation)
Gave that back to Onmund to resolve his quest
Started Brelyna’s favor quest and she turned me green
Then headed off to Septimus’ outpost
Killed en route: snowy sabre cat
Made it to Septimus and got his pointer to Alftand to get to the Elder Scroll
Reverted from being green while talking to him
Returned to mage college
Reported back to Brelyna and did the rest of her experiment
Went back outside and realized OH CRAP SECOND ANCIENT DRAGON
Initial attack on this dragon the same, but it crashlanded on top of the Hall of Countenance
Ran up there and found that Faralda was also alerted by the situation; she ran up to the top of the hall with me and fought the dragon
However, it chomped me the first time; second time i called up the dremora and let them take it out
Looting a whole second dragon got me super overloaded, so went back to Enthir and sold him a bunch of stuff to get unburdened
Then boinged between Windstad and Lakeview
Moved building materials from Lakeview over to Windstad; built out more furnishings in the Small House wing, but also finished building the Main House structure
Boinged back to Lakeview, and heh, found Valdimar coming out of that house; apparently Lakeview remains housecarl central XD
Did some additional alchemy and smithing; made assorted bits of leather and hide armor to sell
Finally leveled up to 52; took Magicka bump and first Enchanting perk
Boinged to Solitude; sold assorted things to Gulum-Ei
Then headed for Proudspire, but before I got there, courier! With the note from Falk Firebeard!
Parked in Proudspire
Saved for the night

Commentary

Not too much I need to say here about running the nightmare plot, given that I just recently ran the Waking Nightmare quest with Shenner, too. The one thing I can at least say is that, yeah, going back to the Switch build after running this plot on the PC made it obvious yet again that the Switch build running dark hides background details from me, in environments like Nightcaller Temple that are already poorly lit in several parts.

I do have something new to report about running favor quests for thaneships, though. I’d forgotten that I’d already brought Rustleif his requested book (because I had had a copy in Whiterun just on my very shelves!). So I attempted to get his book quest as well as Frida’s quest for the Ring of Pure Mixtures.

But neither of them actually had the right conversation prompt available. I was very confused by this.

Went searching for info and found this forum post, which gave me the proper info I needed: i.e., that if you already have a favor quest active for someone, you can’t activate anyone else’s favor quest.

I got around this problem by just going into both of the mines at Dawnstar and doing some mining, so that I could get ore to sell to the two bickering, married miners. That achieved the necessary helping three people to get the thaneship! So I went back to Skald, got thaned, and also bought the land for Heljarchen Hall while I was at it.

As a consequence of that, I actually set foot inside the two mines, which I could not recall doing before on any previous playthrough. And I was kind of surprised by how big each of the mines were!

And amused, as well, by how both of those mines had a complete and utter lack of draugr, spiders, or hostile Forsworn. Is that allowed in a mine in Skyrim? 😀

Took me a little bit though to figure out exactly what quest I had active that was interfering with getting the quest from Frida. I’d thought it was because I had to return Kharjo’s amulet, but apparently not. Because when I took the amulet back to Kharjo and then returned to Frida to try again, she still didn’t have the right conversation prompt.

I finally realized that the interfering quest had to be the one for Onmund at the mage college, because I also had that one active. I’m not sure why Kharjo’s didn’t count, though, unless it’s because Kharjo is part of a Khajiit caravan and his favor quest doesn’t advance you towards any thaneship? Whereas Onmund’s does. Which would explain why I was able to have both of those quests active.

I have written more than once in prior playthroughs about how common it is to have dragons show up at the mage college. I cannot, however, recall offhand any instance where I had that happen multiple times in the same session. While the bones of the first dragon were still lying there in the courtyard! And the second one wasn’t even a fast travel! It was me just coming out of the Hall of Attainment!

And even though some of the fighting with the second dragon was inside the courtyard, it actually wound up crashlanding on top of the Hall of Countenance. Possibly because there was in fact still a dragon skeleton lying in the courtyard. So presumably the game thinks there isn’t room for two dragon skeletons in that space.

Last but not least, I went and did the first encounter with Septimus, so now I’m prepped to go hit Alftand and get down to Blackreach for the Elder Scroll! (And also a boatload of crimson nirnroot.)

And, I got the courier with the followup message about the Potema problem!

Next time

Going to follow up on that Wolf Queen problem, which should hopefully also mean I can get the thaneship of Haafingar in that session. Time permitting, I’ll then go run Alftand to get the Elder Scroll, since I’ll need that anyway for running Dawnguard!