Morrowind,  Tembriel Playthrough

In Which Tembriel is Not the Nerevarine–Yet

And after all that action I’ve had in Morrowind in ESO, I had to jump back to the original Morrowind and move Tembriel’s playthrough along! Very satisfied to report that I finally cleared the Urshilaku Burial Caverns, and had the Urshilaku wise-woman inform me that I am not the Nerevarine. But could become the Nerevarine.

Highlights

  • Play date: 11/10/2022
  • Session number in this run: 31
  • Picked up at the Mages Guild
  • Got in a bit more training with Sharn on Restoration, Alteration, Mysticism
  • Then boinged back to the Burial Caverns
  • Ran all three remaining chambers and nothing at any point seriously challenged me, not even the wraith with the bow
  • Implemented the advice from Skywind Discord re: making a loot pile in one place and running the whole place in one go, until I could safely escape with the loot
  • The Wizard’s Staff was also super useful for levitating 😀
  • Other notable loot:
    • Devil Cephalopod Helm
    • Sword of White Woe
  • Amulet’d out once to Gnisis to sell loot there and leave a little pile to come back to later
  • Then Recall’d one last time to the caverns to get out the front way, quickest route back to the Urshilaku Camp
  • Fought a few respawned creatures, a rat and skeletons, on the way out
  • Came out the caverns and fought a kagouti, but otherwise clear run all the way back to the Urshilaku camp
  • Reported back to the Ashkan, who proclaimed me Clanfriend and gave me permission to speak to the wise-woman
  • Had a nice long chat with her about whether I was the Nerevarine, just because it seemed respectful to ask her about all the various things she offered as conversational prompts
  • Her verdict: not the Nerevarine but could become the Nerevarine, and there were certain signs in place that at the very least suggested that I was important to the Nerevarine’s coming
  • She gave me a couple of books and sent me off to go flnd lost prophecies
  • Amulet’d back to Gnisis and sold enough loot that I could then walk impeded to the silt strider without leaving anything behind
  • Boinged back to Balmora
  • Dropped a bunch of items off at the Mages Guild
  • Sold some ingredients and potions to Sharn and restocked healing potions off of her
  • Reported back to Caius who gave me the next mission: destroying a Sixth House base
  • He urged me to get new gear and training, anything I needed to take it on, but to take out the head cultist at the base, and right then next major plot point on the horizon
  • Took five rounds of training in Speechcraft from him as well
  • So this is going to take some planning and side questing! And seeing if I can get more glass armor!
  • Saved for the night

A recap of how I got here

Let’s review, shall we?

This is now the ninth session since I originally visited the Ashlanders at Urshilaku and got the objective to get into the burial caverns, and get that bow to prove myself worthy to be a clanfriend. Which was, in my opinion, a long goddamn time to actually clear a single dungeon. Which is why I am now delighted to report that I have in fact now finally done it.

Advice from the Skywind Discord was critical in this respect, the main idea being, clear everything in the dungeon, gather all the loot in one great big pile, and then get out and sell it. I will be following this suggestion as much as possible, moving forward. Because it did indeed let me hit the remaining three chambers of the Burial Caverns, including getting that critical bow, and then get out again to go talk to the Ashlanders.

The other critical thing I’ll need to do moving forward: better planning for raiding major dungeons like this. The vast majority of the time I spent across the last nine sessions was trying to get means of levitation, so that I could actually reach all the decent loot in the place.

Mind you, I’m glad I did that, because there was a stupendous amount of loot to be had. But it’s also worth noting here that I never would have known that if I didn’t camp out on the wiki and look for this kind of information. Now, of course, as a gamer, I’m accustomed to looking in every last little corner of a dungeon to find the loot. But that’s presupposing that I can get to every last corner of the dungeon.

And until I knew that levitation is a thing in Morrowind, I would not have known that there is a great amount of loot to be had if you can get to higher portions of a dungeon. And that at least in the case of the Urshilaku Burial Caverns, levitation is pretty much required to get through the place to begin with. Or, alternately, a much better level of Acrobatics skill than my character has, I think.

My point here being, I’m super glad the wiki clued me in about these things so that I understood what I had to work on to finally successfully make it through the dungeon. In general, at this point, I’d have to say that if anybody wanted to do what I’m doing and take on playing Morrowind in this day and age, reading your way through the wiki as you go is an important survival plan!

And after I put in all that work…

This was, at any rate, the session in which all that side training and acquisition of levitation means paid off. I got in with another Recall, hit the Kefka, Kekuna, and Juno chambers, and actively needed levitation in two of them for proper clearing.

And on my last couple of level ups, I’d specifically taken more points in Strength just to bring up my carry weight a bit more. Which did help some in terms of how much loot I could carry, even with implementing the “make a great big pile of loot” plan. I did limit myself in what I took, though, only grabbing things if they were worth at least 100 gold.

In addition to the plot-critical bow, I also got out of there with a few other notable loot items as well, a Devil Cephalopod Helm, a Sword of White Woe, a Common Soul Gem with a scamp soul in it, and a couple of Dwemer and Orcish armor items worth several hundred gold all together.

As vexing as I found all the prep I had to do to get through, I gotta say, the payout was great. Adding these items to the other stuff I’d already gotten, including two different glass armor pieces and the ebony helm, made thorough exploration of the Burial Caverns worth the time and effort.

And this meant, finally, that I was able to return to the Urshilaku Camp and check back in with them.

So hi, I got this bow, so am I the Nerevarine or what? (y/n)

The Ashkan was happy to proclaim me Clanfriend, and gave me permission to both keep the bow I’d retrieved and talk to the wise-woman about whether I was the Nerevarine.

I have kept the bow! But the bonemold long bow I’m already carrying seems like it has better stats, even given how the Bonebiter Bow has an enchantment on it. But that bow is also a short bow. So I don’t think I’ll actually use it. But I feel like I shouldn’t sell it, either. That would be rude, after the Ashlanders embraced me as a clanfriend and all.

Talking to the wise-woman was quite satisfying. She started off by noting several things I could ask her about, or how I could just ask her point-blank if I was the Nerevarine, if I were impatient. I opted to be patient, since that did seem like a large stone hint. And I feel like Tembriel would be trying to be respectful and all.

The upshot of the conversation though was that the wise-woman thought I was not the Nerevarine, but could become the Nerevarine. And she even asked me if I wanted to be. I’m not sure what I think about that aspect of it, since it has the implication that being the Nerevarine is a choice, as opposed to the simple consequence of being the actual resurrection of Nerevar. But I guess you can take this as a poetic way of saying “do you actually want to accept this as your destiny?”

Which, as I think about it, kind of plays well with Tembriel. Up until this point, I think she’s been taking this entire concept mostly as bullshit, and a big part of her is going “I’m a Bosmer and a woman, how could I possibly be the resurrection of an ancient Chimer male hero?” And she’s still kind of balking about being thrown into the deep end on this, and being expected to go along with it because apparently the Emperor wants her to.

And yet. She hasn’t forgotten the dreams she had on the ship on the way to Morrowind, and the voice speaking to her in those. Or the dreams she’s been having since. Or the spooky Sleepers who’ve been coming up to her a lot in Balmora.

She’s starting to feel like there’s something going on here, enough that by the time the wise-woman told her that she is at the very least possibly connected to the coming of the Nerevarine, she got chills.

So now she’s starting to feel like she needs to understand what this bigger thing going on is. And she returned to Balmora, to report in to Caius, and get his orders on what to do next.

Next time

Caius gave me the orders to go take out that Sixth House base, and because I have read ahead a little on the wiki, I know a major plot point is going to fall on my head there.

But before I do that, I’m going to take Caius up on his suggestion that I go get whatever gear and training I think I’m going to need before taking that Sixth House base on. He gave me 400 drakes for expenses, though heh, Caius my dude, the gear I think I’m going to need is going to be worth a lot more than that. 😉

Fortunately, I have all this lovely loot I got out of the Burial Caverns! And a thing I’ve also seen on the wiki is that if I go to Ghostgate, there is possibly an almost entire set of glass armor to be had from a merchant there. Who apparently has everything except greaves and a tower shield for sale.

Ever so conveniently, those are the exact pieces I got out of the Burial Caverns!

So I’m thinking, if I go see this guy in Ghostgate, could I actually buy all the other pieces off of him if I bring the tasty expensive loot with me? Maybe if I also throw in the various Dark Brotherhood pieces I’m still wearing?

What I do after that is going to depend on how much money I have left over from the armor acquisition. I kind of also feel like it’d be nice to getting that House Hlaalu stronghold. If I don’t have enough money left after getting more glass armor, I may go run some side plots instead until I do!

And I do want to get in some more training as well. I’ve been fighting opponents almost exclusively with the Daedric katana, so now my Long Blade skill is closing in on 100. But I really ought to train up Marksman some more, because, well, I’m an Archer.

Thinking also that I’d like to get my Acrobatics trained up some more as well, just to make it easier to get out of places like that spot in the Burial Caverns where I got stuck in the water. I suspect that if my Acrobatics skill was better, I could maybe have jumped out of there.

Screenshots

Editing to add

  • 11/24/2023: Restored missing gallery.

As Angela Highland, Angela is the writer of the Rebels of Adalonia epic fantasy series with Carina Press. As Angela Korra'ti, she writes the Free Court of Seattle urban fantasy series. She's also an amateur musician and devoted fan of Newfoundland and Quebecois traditional music.