In Which Shenner Faces An Awkward Situation

This was mostly a pretty low-key session, with a bunch of building, moving stuff around, and following up on Fishing-related quests.

But I also did some followup on the directive from the Jarl of Markarth to go kill a Forsworn leader. The awkward part of this: the leader in question was in Druadach Redoubt, lair of the Forsworn I just helped escape from Cidhna Mine. Awkward.

Highlights

• Play date: 7/20/2022
• Session number in this run: 40
• Started at Dawnstar
• Boinged around a lot between Heljarchen, Windstad, Lakeview, Hendraheim, and Bloodchill Cavern
• Moved all the guard armor into Bloodchill Manor, also the Old Gods armor pieces and the Irkngthand war axes
• Also made Spell Knight armor while I was in there, an iron set and a steel set to sell and burn through building materials
• Got courier at Hendraheim with another note from Viriya, who’s standing down from fishing and wants to become a crab merchant; apparently really loves her some mudcrabs! So I got objectives to bring her building materials for a stall
• Consolidated a lot of building materials, some of which I spent on Viriya’s building materials
• Shopped at Whiterun and Riften, to sell loot and buy iron
• Shopped at Riften with Bersi to get rid of more loot
• Gave Viriya her stall materials and got objective to come back and check on her when she’s built it
• Just outside Riften got two trolls and a dragon, which I only realized when I tried to mount up on Swift Wind but he ran off to attack the trolls, followed by one of the other stable horses!
• Then the dragon also showed up, so guards and Team Dragonborn and I all killed it
• Boinged next to Solitude to sell the Spell Knight armor I made to Beirand
• Mounted up again and headed south to Chilllwind Depths
• Spotted fishing spot at the campsite near there
• Took out the bear at the entrance
• Went inside Chillwind but only to the interior fishing spot; caught another of the fish I need for Swims’ quest
• Headed from there to Druadach Redoubt
• Killed a few sabre cats en route
• Forsworn outside the redoubt were bound and determined to attack Swift Wind; i would have intervened but Swift Wind defended himself
• While that was going on a Fugitive/Hunter encounter also happened, and the Hunter wound up shooting at the Forsworn who were attacking Swift Wind
• Once that excitement settled down I went in to check the place out
• Madanach actually greeted me as his friend from Cidhna Mine and spoke proudly of the place being the site of a new uprising
• And uh yeah awkward
• Threw on the Ring of Khajiit and cast Hide, then pickpocketed the Briarheart and yoinked his heart out
• Boinged to Markarth to report in to Igmund
• Saved there for the night

Commentary

A good chunk of the beginning of this session was a lot of bouncing back and forth between houses, more than I really covered in the highlight notes. The main goals of moving stuff around were:

1. Getting the guard armor collection all into the same place, and I picked Bloodchill just because it seemed to have the most mannequins available in one place
2. Combining some of my stashes of building materials
3. Getting some general smithing done, of both things I could sell and materials to use for building the last few things in the houses that needed building

This wound up overlapping as well with the epilogue of Viriya’s branch of the Fishing quests. I got a courier with a letter from her, saying that she was going to retire from being a fisherman and start selling crabs in the market in Riften. And, because of course the game did, I got objectives to bring her the materials she needed to make a stall for her merchant work.

So in between moving a bunch of items around, doing some shopping, and buying additional armor, I gathered all the things she needed and delivered them to her in Riften. Which should mean next time Shenner sets foot in that city, there should be an additional marketing stall! I’ll be curious to see where it’ll actually be placed.

The other major thing I did this session was to follow up on the directive from the Jarl of Markarth to take out a Forsworn leader. And, as expected, this proved kind of awkward, given that the random location chosen for this directive was Druadach Redoubt.

I.e., the very same location at which Madanach’s forces settled in after escaping from Cidhna Mine.

I can come up with absolutely no narrative in which Shenner gets in there to kill their Briarheart and it is not extremely awkward. Oddly, the game actually gave no fucks about my doing this. Every single Forsworn in the place was peaceful to me, even after I dropped into Sneak and yoinked the briar heart out of their Briarheart. Who was also peaceful when I approached.

(Which I did, by the way, by using the Ring of Khajiit. And I can confirm now that yes, the Hide spell casts brief invisibility on you. So now I have a couple of different means to trigger invisibility besides the spell itself.)

And when I came out of Sneak, nobody seemed to notice what I did. I didn’t think to check whether the game counted it as a murder, though! Because I didn’t actually attack him with a weapon, I just pickpocketed his briar heart.

Still though I cannot help but imagine Shenner trying not to look profoundly discomfited as she came out of Sneak. “This guy just fell over! I dunno what happened, he just yelped and collapsed. Wait, he’s dead? Really? Do you have another briar heart you can put in him? It doesn’t work that way? Well, crap, I’m so sorry. What a damn shame!”

The only issue I had at all getting into the place was that the two Forsworn outside the main entrance weren’t hostile to me–but they were hostile to Swift Wind! Apparently there’s a known issue with the Forsworn in this scenario attacking your horse if you show up with one, and Swift Wind counts as a horse.

So I let Swift Wind beat up on the Forsworn. I felt slightly guilty about that, thinking “y’know, these assholes are attacking my unicorn, should I be doing something about this?” But Swift Wind was perfectly capable of defending himself. And I kind of didn’t want to risk having the Forsworn inside get hostile if I wound up killing the two outside.

And while that fight was going on, a Fugitive/Hunter encounter triggered as well. And the Hunter from that wound up shooting at the Forsworn as well.

So, weird experience all around! I actually liked visiting Druadach Redoubt just because I hadn’t been in there before, and it was a nicer camp than several of the Forsworn camps I’ve seen, even if it wasn’t in an actual building. Which is befitting a camp led by Madanach.

But in the future I think I’ll avoid coming back to that locale if I have to kill a Briarheart for the Jarl of Markarth after I escape Cidhna Mine. Because awkward.

Next time

I’ll check in with the Jarl, and that’ll probably mean I’ll do his quest to recover his father’s shield. Finishing that up and doing the favor quests to get the thaneship of the Reach should make for a decent busy session!

Screenshots

Editing to add

• 11/23/2023: Restored missing gallery, and added play date and session number markers.