In Which Faanshi Finds the Black Book of Nchardak

And just because I have been kind of neglecting my playthrough on the Switch, I wanted to make a point of getting back to Faanshi and her playthrough! Main action: going to Tel Mithryn, clearing the Sun Stone, hitting Nchardak for its Black Book–and getting the ultimatum from Hermaeus Mora.

Highlights

• Play date: 11/11/2022
• Session number in this run: 62
• Picked up again at Severin Manor
• Dropped off assorted bits of loot in chests, then headed out to go to Tel Mithryn
• Fought en route:
  • Orc at Old Attius Farm
  • Two ash hoppers
  • Mage fight near silt strider
  • Lurker Vindicator–which killed me
• Thrown back to coming out of Severin Manor
• Fought en route, take two, and this time with assistance from the dremora:
  • Khajiit at Old Attius Farm
  • One ash hopper
  • Burnt spriggan near Hrodulf’s House
  • Another mage fight near the silt strider
  • Lurker Guardian
• This time, lurker and mages successfully taken out; I let the dremora handle the up close fighting, while I broke out my bow
• Burnt spriggan again, crossing the stream–and Revus came running down to get into the fight and helped kill it
• Bought the resonance gem off of Revus, and sold him several items I got off the Khajiit
• Ran over to clear the Sun Stone; got a Lurker Guardian, and threw the dremora at it
• Went over to Tel Mithryn
• Initial conversation with Talvas and Varona interrupted by the arrival of a Revered Dragon, who did that buggy behavior of being super slow in the sky a few times, but who eventually killed me
• Thrown back to coming away from the Sun Stone, so not too far
• Re-did initial encounter with Talvas and Varona
• Went in to talk to Neloth and got his quest objective to go to Nchardak
• Headed over there with him and Serana
• As with a couple of the previous playthroughs, forgot about getting up into the side nook with the resonance gem, so had to roll back slightly so I could take care of that
• Otherwise got through the place with little problems, it helped that Faanshi has Volsung and didn’t have to worry about being underwater
• Ran the Black Book, which was touch and go for a bit as the lurkers and seekers were hard fights, but that’s what I have the dremora for
• Reached the end of the level finally and got the ultimatum from Hermaeus Mora
• Took Dragonborn Force off the Black Book
• Emerged and exited Nchardak with Neloth and Serana
• Cue Krosulhah! Threw storm atronachs at him, and whipped out dragonbone bow to shoot at him
• Overloaded once we downed him, and I took the dragon bits and loot
• Arvak’d back to Raven Rock
• Saw a courier waiting for me who followed after as I rode up to Glover’s forge; got off Arvak and the courier caught up, and gave me the first letter from Ralis
• Sold a bunch of things to Glover to get the inventory weight down, then headed into Severin Manor
• Did some smithing to burn through backlogged materials
• Made camping supplies to go place at the Skaal Village
• Made some Leather Scout armor just to see how Faanshi looks in it; it worked very well on her!
• Did a little bit of enchanting to get some additional alchemy gear, then did some alchemy
• Shelved a bunch of books
• Saved for the night

Commentary

The consequence of having multiple playthroughs going in multiple games now is that it now takes me longer to get through any specific playthrough. And right now, my love’s been going to Elder Scrolls Online and Morrowind, not terribly surprisingly–because those are the games where I’ve got new stuff going on.

But I was feeling guilty about neglecting poor Faanshi, so I wanted to get back to playing her with this post! Which revealed for me another benefit of detailed blogging of my gaming activity–because if I go for days without playing a specific character, it’s very helpful to me to be able to look at that character’s last post and remind myself what the hell I was doing.

Still though, nothing I did with Faanshi this time through was new at this point, so not much to say about any of that besides what I have in the notes.

I can however note that I’ve got a whole bunch of new notes in Faanshi’s inventory–probably handed over when the courier showed up to give me the first note from Ralis for Kolbjorn Barrow. These are all the notes for quest prompts for AE content, now that Faanshi’s playthrough has access to that stuff, including:

• Invitation to dinner, which leads to getting Bloodchill Manor
• Invitation to come fight the warrior who wants to cede Hendraheim to a worthy owner
• Note about the necromancers raising zombies
• Note that leads to getting the pet bonewolf
• Note from Tyra Blood-Fire that leads to fighting her and getting the ebony plate armor

And there may have been a couple others, but those are the ones I remember off the top of my head. I’ll need to think about how many of these things I want to do with Faanshi. I have two options before me here:

1. Dig into all the AE content with Faanshi, which would extend her playthrough quite a bit; question to be answered here is, how well can you start doing AE stuff when you upgrade to the AE during an established playthrough on the Switch? Which could be an interesting thing to learn
2. Speed run the rest of Faanshi’s playthrough, finish up Dragonborn, go kill Alduin, and then do a brand new, full AE playthrough

Not sure which way I want to go yet.

Next time

As is usual when I run Dragonborn, I don’t think I’ll go straight to the Skaal village and bring word of Herma-Mora’s ultimatum to Storn yet. There are too many other interesting things to do on Solstheim first!

And even if I don’t play Ghosts of the Tribunal with Faanshi, there are at least a few AE things I know I want to do. But not sure what I want to do with her specifically next! I’ll have to see what I’m in the mood for next time I pick up the Switch!

Screenshots

Editing to add

• 11/24/2023: Restored missing gallery.