In Which Tembriel is Distracted from Her Mission

Things have gotten a bit distracted in my usual playtime, because I’ve been trying to set up the Steam Deck to be able to use mods! Which took some doing, as you all may have noticed from my last couple of posts on this site.

But in the meantime I have at least gotten in a little Morrowind. And Tembriel’s still trying to get to the Ashlander camp she’s been ordered to contact–but she’s run into a snag, as a Redguard has begged her to rescue his wife from cultists! Who, as it happens, are at a nearby Daedric shrine.

Highlights

Tuesday’s play

Play date: 9/13/2022
Session number in this run: 18
Started in Ald’ruhn
Did a little shopping with the general goods trader and the smith
Picked up a fresh supply of steel arrows at the Fighters Guild, and a few potions from both the Fighters and Mages Guilds
Took the silt strider to Khuul
Started looking for the Ashlander camp but did not make it there
Found a nearby campfire with three hostiles who immediately attacked me, so I kicked all their asses
Did four runs of bringing their stuff back into the village to sell to the trader
Started hunting around for the camp
Found an egg mine (Panud) that I peeked into, only to realize a) there are people in there who b) would probably be cranky if I took their eggs, and anyway c) I don’t actually need them because right, I have some in my inventory, damn good thing I remembered to check
Found a cave (Ashir-Dan) and the Alen Ancestral Tomb; did not investigate
Found a Daedric shrine, near which I killed a scamp
Also killed assorted cliff racers, rats, nix-hounds, and kwama foragers
Found a Redguard dude named Sason whose wife has been abducted by cultists OHNOEZ
He asked for my help
Saved here for the night

Thursday’s play

Play date: 9/15/2022
Session number in this run: 19
Picked up where I left off agreeing to help Sason by rescuing his wife
Headed west of where I found him, to look for her at the shrine Ashalmawia
Reached Anit’s Yurt en route
Two hostiles outside of that yurt decided to start some shit; i finished it for them, though I didn’t go into the yurt to engage a third hostile
Leveled up to 12 while doing that; took bumps in Strength, Endurance, and Personality
Killed a couple of nix-hounds and a rat on the way from there to the shrine
Met first cultist: Bodean
He temporarily immobilized me but ran quickly out of magicka, so he tried to punch me
My dude I’m fully armored, how do you think this is going to go for you? <katana-stabs>
Stopped there though after getting killed by a flame atronach, further planning required

Commentary

So yeah, two very short sessions which by themselves didn’t really amount to full posts, but when taken together, are a good enough overall theme of “Tembriel is supposed to find this Ashlander camp but keeps getting sidetracked!”

Apparently nobody in camps near Khuul is inclined to say “hi stranger, come share our fire, want a mug of warm netch milk?” Nope, it’s all “DIE DIE DIE” and then I have to kill every one of them. This, I feel, does not really bode well for this whole idea of my supposedly being here to unite the Dunmer people.

I’m pretty sure the prophecy doesn’t mean I’m supposed to unite them in wanting to kill me, anyway. 😀

Found three different locations I elected to not explore, past the brief foray into the egg mine. This was less out of interest in seeing what was in those places, and more out of awareness that I’m on the verge of being overloaded a lot–and I’m trying to minimize how much crap Tembriel is carrying around. It’s hard breaking my Skyrim habit of grabbing all the things!

Plus, no fast travel means I have to tromp back and forth if I want to move loot around, and I find that tedious given my default move speed in Morrowind. I’m trying not to break into a run except under controlled circumstances, so as not to burn Fatigue.

Next time

I also suspect I’m going to have to pull a strategic retreat again. Much will depend on whether I can safely get far enough into that Daedric shrine to find Sason’s kidnapped wife. I was lucky taking out Bodean! But I ran into a flame atronach shortly after–and that thing totally fried me. Also, I learned that in Morrowind, flame atronachs apparently cannot be hurt with non-enchanted or non-silver weapons.

This is going to be a problem.

I still have the Iron Sparksword on me, as well as the Dwemer Jinksword. I could in theory damage the atronach with one of those. But that presupposes getting close enough to the atronach to hit it before it fries me to death. I’m not sure I have adequate protection from fire!

So I’m going to see if I can actually find the kidnapped wife without having to engage all the hostiles in the shrine. If I get lucky and can do that, I can escort her back to her husband.

Otherwise I may have to pull a retreat and figure out how to get more healing potions, resist fire potions, or both. I’d try protective spells but my magic skills are still shitty, so I’m not going to be able to cast such spells for a while.

The Ashlanders, it seems, are just going to have to hang on a little longer.

Screenshots

Editing to add

11/23/2023: Restored missing gallery.
10/10/2024: Converted gallery to native WordPress one.