In Which Gyllerah Delves into King’s Haven Pass

This is another double session post, with the primary action being Paul and me running the King’s Haven Pass delve on Summerset. Secondary action, just general exploration of the island, and also some more learning about how the various types of crafting work in this game.

Highlights

• Play dates: 10/8, 10/9/2022
• Session numbers in this run: 6-7
• Took Gyllerah over to Alinor since Paul had gotten there ahead of me
• Found a few wayshrines on the way to aid in navigation across the island
• Activated multiple skill lines by using appropriate crafting stations
• Made a few enchanting glyphs out of the runestones I’d found
• Also bought a few extra potency ones from the enchanter merchant
• Successfully made some rawhide from scraps
• Bought a couple more levels of backpack space from a pack merchant (Khajiit who was pretty hilarious)
• Paul got ahead of me going north from the city and found a delve, King’s Haven Pass, so I scampered up there to catch up with him so we could run it!
• Found Naliara, NPC who needed us to find notes for a bard to write an epic
• Killed a whole lot of Coral-Splitter goblins, welwas, reef vipers, and skein spiders
• We also found a gryphon that we didn’t kill, but which turned out to be the actual boss of the delve, as I learned when i checked the wiki, oops
• Found all the notes and gave them back to Naliara, who promptly quit helping Mehdze any further
• Mehdze himself showed up and asked for our help in finishing off his epic
• We helped him find the clues that the elves and goblins hadn’t ever had an actual battle, and in fact the elves had betrayed the goblins
• I told Mehdze to write a song about the truth and sent him on his way
• Paul and I found a hostile in the delve, Keetas the Weaver, who was apparently not the actual boss of the dungeon
• We both leveled up all the way to 6 while running the dungeon, and came out to stop for the moment
• Took the wayshrine back to Alinor and parked there to log off
• We logged back in later to come back to the delve and take out the gryphon so we’d get credit in the game achievements for it; I think at this point, Paul leveled up to 7 ahead of me
• Later that night and also on Sunday, I did a little bit more exploring and crafting
• Explored along the coast and fought quite a few Night Runners
• Found the Welenkin Abyssal Geyser and fought a few scary-looking things there
• Found Welenkin Cove and did not try to engage with the place, didn’t want to try to tackle it without Paul
• Killed assorted dire wolves on the way back, and somewhere in the midst of this I leveled up to 7
• Found an iron ore vein and yep that works pretty much like Skyrim, only I automatically had a pickaxe, convenient
• Found a jute plant for harvesting
• Found a drop box containing the Lantern of Lies, which looks like it’s involved with a quest Paul and I are not running yet, but that did certainly seem highly interesting
• Returned to Alinor at that point and did a bit more crafting
• Discovered how to use a cooking station for the ingredients I had on me
• Also how to deconstruct a few of the items I was carrying
• And found a chef who sold me several recipes for provisioning

Exploring on the way to Alinor, and in Alinor itself

Got in some more actual play these last couple of sessions, as well as further exploration of Summerset. And, finally, starting to discover how crafting works in this game.

Paul actually got ahead of me exploring on his own and went all the way to Alinor, so I caught up with him next time we both played together and went to Alinor as well. I really enjoyed just traversing the island and looking at the scenery, in no small part for the difference in style of this particular location vs. what I’ve experienced in Skyrim and Morrowind. And I’m not talking just in terms of graphical quality, I’m also talking about the way the area is designed. It gave an excellent impression of the Altmer having been conscious of everything in the environment–no broken or cobbles in the road I followed, to be sure. And even in the less densely populated space between Shimmerene and Alinor, what buildings I passed were lovely.

Overall, the place seemed to deserve being called the cradle of civilization, as it’s described on the zone loading screen when I log in.

And once I reached Alinor, that was definitely impressive. Two main reasons:

1. Much larger than the cities I’m accustomed to playing in Skyrim (and I think also Morrowind, though I’m still forming my impressions of that game)
2. Much more populated

The population of Alinor certainly wasn’t surprising, just because there were so many player characters running around. But there were also a huge number of NPCs, several of whom had markers floating over them suggesting that they were potential quest givers. With so much activity going on, this helped immensely in giving Alinor a vibrant, active atmosphere and I kind of adore it. <3

With a little bit of exploration, I reached the plaza where all the public crafting stations are set up. And it took me two or three visits to the game, but eventually I got the hang of how to use all of them. Not at all surprised that this plaza sees a huge amount of activity, either. But that said: I’m now kind of looking forward to having my own house where my character can craft in peace! I’m enough of an introvert that even in-game, I find the throngs bounding through the crafting plaza a little intimidating! :O

I definitely adore the various merchants, though. The Khajiit are particularly delightful, especially the pack merchant who cheerfully asked if I’d heard about the new regulation requiring all newcomers to buy a new pack!

Still getting used to which merchants sell what. I was a little surprised that the general merchants I’ve found so far don’t actually appear to have much variety in what they sell, or in what they’ll actually buy from me. There does seem to be much more specialization of merchants than I’m used to from Skyrim.

King’s Haven Pass delve and Savage Truths plot

This was fun! Again, much more populated than I’m used to seeing in a dungeon, because of course other players were also running it. But I really liked the plot, and Naliara and Mehdze as characters.

I can tell though that I will need to be a lot more relaxed and groovy when it comes to building an ongoing narrative about my character’s activities in this game, vs. other ones. Because of course, a purely in-character run of such an environment wouldn’t include a dozen other player characters at the same time!

(Though I’m also legit amused by the thought that the Coral-Splitter goblins are justifiable in their being hostile, not only for the betrayal you discover as part of this plot, but also just because hordes of armed strangers keep tromping through their space. I’d be cranky too, Coral-Splitter goblins! Not going to stop me from throwing Aedric Spear at you if you come at me, but I’m just sayin’, I have some sympathy. LOL.)

There were a couple of confusing aspects about the delve, though. Keetas the Weaver seemed like the boss when we first found her, but even after we killed her, we couldn’t figure out how to get past the door near her location. We even saw other players going through there, but the exit wouldn’t activate for us. Only after poking around on the wiki did I see that Keetas is apparently a boss for an entirely different plot than the one we were running, Savage Truths. Best Paul and I could theorize was that maybe that door unlocks for you if you’re running the other plot?

Also, we didn’t realize first time through that the delve’s boss was the gryphon we found. Paul didn’t want to attack it just because it was hanging out and seemingly minding its own gryphon business. But I discovered, again with the help of the wiki, that that gryphon was in fact the delve’s boss and we had to go kill it in order to get credit for clearing the delve. So we dove back in there a second time to do that.

Because Naliara and Mehdze both mentioned the Illumination Academy, a location we’d spotted nearby on the way in, we went over to explore that too. Clearly it was some kind of a school, though it wasn’t clear to me exactly what kind, a bardic school or a mage one or what. Very nice locale though.

Second round of exploring around Alinor

My second round of exploring was just to check out a bit more of the terrain, until Paul and I could play at the same time again. I went outside of the city mostly to look for jute, since I’d seen that as a material I needed to make things at clothing stations.

But as part of that exploring, I made it down to the beach. At which point I started having to fight multiple bandit-looking NPCs, all of whom appeared to be Night Runners–whoever they are. Pirates, maybe!

I also found a couple of notable locations that’ll want exploring later: the Welenkin Abyssal Geyser, and Welenkin Cove. Both of whom seemed a bit more hardcore than I wanted to tackle on my own at that point.

On the way back, I also found what was clearly some kind of other plot hook, a chest with a thing in it called the Lantern of Lies.

Playing on Mac vs. playing on Steam Deck

So far, I can report that I’m enjoying playing on both the Mac and the Steam Deck. I do like having the larger screen on the computer for ease of reading.

On the other hand, I’m finding that transition between keyboard controls and controller seems to be a bit awkward, and I’m not sure I care for that. Or if it’s just a matter of my needing to get the hang of it.

And I do prefer taking screencaps on the Deck. Still too many fingers involved with having to get screenshots on the Mac, vs. just hitting a couple of quick controller buttons when I’m on the Deck.

I’ll probably continue to switch back and forth for a bit though, until I get a better sense of how play works on both!

Next time

Dunno yet! Paul and I are still playing it by ear, so we’ll see what happens when we’re next logged in together. But on my own, I want to try to get that free inn room just because I’m given to understand that you need to do that in order to unlock being able to have a proper player house later. And I want to learn about how that works.

Screenshots

Whole lotta screenshots here because I did a whole lot of exploring!

Editing to add

• 11/23/2023: Restored missing gallery.