In Which Faanshi Rescues a Priest of Arkay

Continuing Dawnguard side action in this session, primarily going to Ruunvald to rescue the priest of Arkay, Florentius. With bonus schematic fetching action, and also advancing the main Dawnguard plot along by talking to Dexion!

Highlights

• Play date: 7/31/2022
• Session number in this run: 46
• Picked up at Fort Dawnguard
• Boinged from there to Honningbrew to sell stuff to Mallus
• Came back outside from that only to get jumped by Volkihar vampires; threw Serana and dremora at them
• A couple of the Khajiit from Ri’saad’s caravan showed up to help fight—spotted both Khayla and Ma’randru-jo
• Serana wound up raising one of the vamps
• Tried to catch up with the Khajiit to sell some some of my leftover stuff; saw Atahbah briefly but they weren’t parked outside Whiterun, so not sure where they’d gone
• Wound up boinging to Lakeview to drop off stuff in outside chest
• Then boinged back to Honningbrew to run White River Watch and get the second schematic for Sorine
• Found two Vigilants fighting a vampire near there; Serana raised one of the Vigilants to finish the fight, LOL
• Then ran White River Watch with no problems; did not bother to loot the place; Serana kept raising bandits inside
• Boinged back to Lakeview to drop off more stuff
• Then boinged to Shor’s Watchtower to get near Ruunvald
• Killed en route: bear, also surprise Blood Dragon!
• Reached and ran Ruunvald
• Actually succeeded in retrieving the fourth journal, via either Unrelenting Force or fireball, not sure which one knocked it out of the barrel (see below)
• Threw dremora at the final boss chamber, including at Minorne
• Got Florentius freed properly
• Got out of the place and then boinged back to Fort Dawnguard
• Bought light Dawnguard armor off of Gunnar as well as steel to improve it
• Gave Sorine the second schematic and got the quest for the third one, pointing at Fort Fellhammer
• Bought a bunch of things off of Florentius, including the other two interesting Dawnguard spells
• Also got 5 rounds of Restoration training from him
• Finally found Dexion and ohnoez he is blind; got the pointer from him to go to Ancestor Glade
• Headed out with Serana back to Lakeview
• Bandits attacked as soon as I showed up
• Threw a dremora at them, and between him and my housecarls, the bandits were quickly dispatched
• Only found two of them though, no sign of the third, which possibly spawned inside the walls 😛
• Got the bandit loot and added to the buildup of loot in the loot chest
• Discovered the bandits had not killed my cow or my horse, good
• Had a surprise extra NPC show up: a student looking for help with wards to try to get into the College of Winterhold
• So I let him practice throwing spells at me with a ward up, and after that, he promptly went over to my outdoor anvil and started hammering on stuff?
• Went inside though to drop off assorted ingredients
• Saved for the night

Commentary

I know I comment on this every time I run Dawnguard, but it’s still funny to me how Serana just raises dead bodies left and right whenever she’s in combat. It’s particularly simultaneously hilarious and disturbing when she does it to Vigilants of Stendarr, too.

Because she did that twice this session–first just before I ran White River Watch, and then again once we got to Ruunvald.

“Khajiit thinks perhaps she should be more concerned that her vampire companion insists on raising the dead Vigilants.” [beat] “But then, they stink of bad magic. This one does not feel guilty deploying her dremora to defend us.”

Let it also be noted that this time through I did actually manage to get the fourth journal, the one that’s bugged because it’s stuck inside a barrel. This time I actually got it to knock loose.

I’m not entirely sure what actually did it–because I tried an Unrelenting Force Shout, but also a couple of fireballs. The fireball attempts were one head on, and one from the side. One of those three different attempts somehow managed to knock the book loose properly on the far side of the barrel.

So now I know that works, anyway! It’ll be interesting to see if the bug reproduces in Shenner’s run.

Meanwhile, once I got back to Fort Dawnguard, I decided to buy the light edition of the Dawnguard armor off of Florentius. Not really feeling the love for the heavy armor version on Faanshi.

Mind you, I’m also not feeling the light armor love on Faanshi either, mostly just because the Dawnguard helmet doesn’t sit any better on her head than other helmets do. I think any further attempts I do at playing a Khajiit are going to have to be on PC, just so I can have access to the mod that adjusts helmets to work better with Khajiit heads!

Finally found Dexion, got to the conversation where I discover he’s blind, and got the quest objective to proceed to Ancestor Glade.

But first, I proceeded to Lakeview to drop off more stuff!

Which had a couple of amusing results. One: yet another bandit raid on my house, which went very badly for the bandits. As is often the case at Lakeview, I found only two bandits; presumably the third one spawned inside the house walls.

I noted with satisfaction that the bandits did not kill either my cow or my horse. Which means this is the seventh consecutive session that that horse has managed to not be killed by something! Way to go, horse!

(Of course, the last few sessions have been ones where I’ve actually been able to summon Arvak, so now I don’t actually need the living horse. So he gets to hang out at Lakeview now. Which I expect will do wonders for his life expectancy, at least until a bandit or a giant does actually kill him. We’ll see how much longer he lasts!)

And two: right after the bandit attack, I had another NPC show up. This one was an NPC encounter I knew in theory count happen, because I’d seen it called out on the World Interactions page: a magic student asking you for help practicing wards, because he wants to get into the College of Winterhold.

“Khajiit presumes you know that she is the Arch-Mage of the college? She is impressed at your initiative in finding her at her home. She will help you practice your wards and judge your fitness to join the college. You understand now? Good. Go to the college and demonstrate to Faralda what you have shown Khajiit.”

Of course, right after he practiced throwing things at my ward, he promptly went over to Lakeview’s outside anvil and started hammering on it. LOL.

“Ah, Khajiit is very confused? She thought you wished to become a mage, not a smith. but then, she supposes a supplementary skill is also useful. And you will need a sharp dagger if you wish to travel through the cold snows of Winterhold.”

Next time

My thought here had been to proceed directly to Ancestor Glade from Lakeview, since it’s fairly close by. But I’m also tempted to go get the rest of the schematics first just so I can get to the point of having the fanciest crossbow, as well as the exploding bolts.

Not sure yet. I’ll decide next time!

Screenshots

Editing to add

• 11/23/2023: Restored missing gallery.