In Which Faanshi Seeks Paragon Treasure and Stones of Barenziah

Extremely low-key session, where most of the action was me hitting the Paragon Portal in the Forgotten Vale, and bopping around to various places to check on how many more Stones of Barenziah I need. I figured this is good interim activity to take care of while I work on getting Shenner through Solstheim, before I take Faanshi over there!

Highlights

• Play date: 8/22/2022
• Session number in this run: 53
• Picked up in Whiterun
• Boinged to Lakeview
• Greeted by Sofie who wanted to know if we could play a game; apologies, small cub, but Khajiit is very tired from her travels
• Dropped off Harkon’s gear and picked up the Nightingale gear
• Went back out and boinged to Forgotten Vale
• Ran the Paragon portals and picked up all the loot
• Boinged back to Lakeview
• This time Sofie asked if I’d brought her a present; apologies, small cub, but Khajiit will perhaps bring you a doll next time?
• Then a giant showed up, which freaked out Sofie (Khajiit is fairly sure that the small cub would not appreciate the gift of a giant toe?)
• The housecarls (including Gregor, who had shown up) and I took him out
• Went inside after that, and down into the cellar for smithing; kicked Smithing over to Legendary; dropped all the perks on alchemy and enchanting
• Did a bunch of low-tier smithing to kick the Smithing points back up
• Grabbed all the building materials and tromped back outside
• My horse apparently disappeared? (Possibly scared off by the giant?)
• Arvak’d to Heljarchen, only to realize I’d burned all my iron at Lakeview, oops
• Arvak’d to Whiterun; sold a bunch of things to Drunken Hunstman and Warmaiden’s; bought a bunch of iron and corundum and steel
• Arvak’d back to Heljarchen, and found a stash of materials i’d forgotten was in the entry room chest!
• Built out the bedroom wing, also a few more things in the entryway and down in the cellar
• Then went out for a Stones of Barenziah run
• Boinged to Whiterun; swiped the stone from the Hall of the Dead, and the one from Jorrvaskr
• Boinged to Solitude, confirmed I’d already gotten the one in Proudspire
• Boinged to the college and picked up the one in the Arch-Mage’s quarters
• Boinged to Riften; yoinked the stone out of the Jarl’s quarters
• Went to Honeyside and slept
• Got Iona on follower duty; initial plan at this point was to go to Ansilvund
• Got flyby dragon just outside Riften
• Also got two cave bears; determined that hitting them with Auriel’s Bow and Sunhallowed arrows put Iona in the line of fire and not acceptable, that; I only grazed Iona a couple of times though and she didn’t get pissed enough to attack me
• Killed the bears with the Nightingale bow instead
• Then saw Khajiit coming and shopped with them
• Headed to Shor’s Stone and and bought iron from the smith there
• Killed a wolf further along the road, and found two dead wolves shortly thereafter
• And a troll hassling Talsgar the Wanderer, which I promptly killed
• Made it to Ansilvund–but got fried by the Arch Conjurer who was on watch outside >_<
• Thrown all the way back to coming out of Honeyside with Iona
• NEW PLAN
• Did a bunch of shopping in Riften and also down in the Thieves Guild
• Got Iona some ebony armor, and also got a whole bunch of iron
• Boinged to Windstad
• Iona immediately volunteered to be steward, and I let her
• Also discovered Windstad still needed building attention too, and skeevers in the basement needed killing; let a flame atronach take them out
• Built out part of the cellar
• Boinged to Heljarchen–and realized I was out of sawn logs
• Saved there for the night

Commentary

I wound up disappointing poor Sofie twice in this session! I need to get that kid a sister, so she’ll have somebody to play with. Maybe Runa once I go take out the Dark Brotherhood!

Running the Paragon portals basically went as per prior playthroughs, though I had to invoke the dremora to help me out with the Falmer Warmonger who was carrying Auriel’s Shield. Which I then promptly put on a shield rack in the bedrooms in Lakeview, just because that thing’s too heavy for Faanshi to carry. But it’s also too nice to leave stuffed in a chest!

Went ahead and kicked Faanshi’s Smithing over to Legendary, just to return to being able to level up more via crafting. And because that’s the only skill of hers that’s made it to 100 that isn’t a hundred percent critical to keep there. The dremora lords are too damned valuable in a fight. And Faanshi’s Sneak being at 100 means I can usually hide out of sight while the dremora lords are kicking something’s ass for me! So I can’t spare either of those.

But I need something to keep advancing skills. Most of Faanshi’s leveling right now is coming out of crafting, since half the time I’m not actually directly engaging enemies with her.

Sneaking into Jorrvaskr for the Stone of Barenziah in there, with the aid of several invisibility potions, was satisfying as always. 😉 And while it’s not like I exactly need to be swimming in gems, since I know how the Stones of Barenziah plot turns out at this point, it’s still nice to actually do the run for the Stones just to remind myself that this character is a thief.

Likewise sneaking into the Jarl’s quarters in Riften. I came in while the court was having dinner, and wound up just making myself invisible right there. Then sneaking past the guards to get to the Jarl’s quarters while she was eating. Nobody seemed to notice that I blipped in and out of sight in the court.

A couple of the guards did give me the “If I find your hand in my pocket, I’m going to cut it off” and “Hands to yourself, sneak thief” lines. The hands of Khajiit are exactly where they need to be, O guards of the Jarl of Riften. Bold of you to assume that you would see what this one’s hands are doing. <Khajiitlaugh>

Finally confirmed, by taking Iona to Windstad with me, that I must have been conflating having Iona become Windstad’s steward in Shenner’s run. In this session, Faanshi’s Iona promptly volunteered to be Windstad’s steward as soon as I showed up.

“Yes, please, housecarl Iona of Riften. Khajiit would like you to be steward of this place, and keep housecarl Valdimar of Morthal company. Khajiit thinks he must be lonely here, if he keeps going to Lakeview.”

And I was a little surprised to discover that Windstad, like Heljarchen, still wasn’t completely built out yet!

Next time

Clearly I have some more house building to do! Which is good, as it’ll give me an excuse to work on restoring my Smithing, and it’ll also keep me occupied while I finish up Solstheim with Shenner.

But there are also seven more Stones of Barenziah to get, and then the final dungeon to run for that!

The Stones I have left to get are:

1. Ansilvund
2. Rannveig’s Fast
3. Sunderstone Gorge
4. Yngvild
5. Black-Briar Lodge
6. Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary
7. The wizard’s quarters in the Palace of the Kings

Hmm, the first four of these seem like maybe two sessions’ worth of play.

Hitting Black-Briar Lodge is worth a session by itself, I think. And I’m tempted by the idea of running the horse plot this time but not telling Maven Black-Briar about it in advance.

And I can hit 6 and 7 on this list in a single session, too. May or may not run Blood on the Ice? We’ll see!

I think I want to hit 1-4 with Jordis’ help. So I feel like I may need to go see a man about a horse next time!

Screenshots

No screenshots this time.