In Which Kendis Goes to Shroud Hearth Barrow

A much lower key session after damn near freezing to death on the seven thousand steps! This session just focused on running Shroud Hearth Barrow, and then returning to Whiterun for post-quest resting and restocking of supplies.

Play by play

• Play date: 12/15/2022
• Session number in this run: 7
• Picked up in Ivarstead
• Did initial investigation of Shroud Hearth Barrow; took out Wyndelius
• Brought the journal back to Wilhelm and got the Sapphire Dragon Claw, then ran Shroud Hearth Barrow in earnest
• Swapped into the scale armor for best defense
• Took several tries to get through, the draugr at the final locked door killed me once, and then the draugr just above the skeleton/oil area kept killing me more 😛
• Collected Elven Boots and an Elven Shield out of the expert tier chest as well as the final chest
• Skipped the same parts of the water chamber I skipped with Harrow, and finally made it through
• Threw the atronach and Lydia at draugr and skeletons in the final boss chamber, then made it to the boss chest and Word Wall
• Got the word for Kyne’s Peace
• Got back out of the barrow and rested up and ate, then got up the next morning to ride back to Whiterun
• Had to remember to teleport the pets to me and tell them to follow me so they wouldn’t be stuck in Ivarstead
• Swapped back to fur armor for riding through the mountains
• Passed a hostile Orc who tried to attack me, but outran him
• Paused near Helgen for Lydia and pets to catch up
• Stopped in Riverwood to sell a bunch of things to Alvor and Lucan
• Alvor had boots with a Resist Frost enchantment! DON’T MIND IF I DO!
• Returned to Whiterun, and shopped with Adrianne, Belethor, Arcadia, and Hulda
• Got more salt and did more cooking, and made new hot soups with the two fire salts from the Alchemist’s Shack
• Went up to Dragonsreach and destroyed the boots with the Resist Frost enchantment
• Chopped a bunch of firewood; made three rounds of Camping Supplies; sold the remaining firewood to Hulda
• Got a new bounty to run, this time for Halted Stream Camp
• Dropped off a bunch of stuff in the dresser at Jorrvaskr
• Slept and saved there for the night

Commentary

A thing I’ve seen recommended about Survival Mode is that it’s a good idea to run multiple quests in a location before you try to move on again. Which meant that for this round, I wanted to take the time to run Shroud Hearth Barrow before leaving Ivarstead.

Since I’d just run the place with Harrow’s playthrough as well, I wasn’t hugely inclined to dawdle there with Kendis. I wound up skipping the same parts with Kendis that I had with Harrow–the watery tunnel partway through, as well as the waterfall with a sword behind it. With Kendis’ playthrough, even more than Harrow’s, I figured that minimizing the amount of loot I picked up was probably the wisest course of action. So I really wanted a surgical strike on the place.

That said: I did have enough lockpicks to spare that I took the chance of trying the Master lock on the door at the top of the spiral stairs, and then the Expert lock on the chest behind that door. Which did get me some good–and lightweight–loot.

I thought about hanging around in Ivarstead long enough to try to find Temba Wide-Arm and get her bearskins quest. But I didn’t quite have enough giveadamn to track her down; I was more interested in riding back to Whiterun, so that I could replenish supplies. And Ivarstead has no merchants, or any crafting tables. So I rounded up Lydia and Lightning and headed out.

And only remembered on the way out that oh shit, I’d forgotten to get the pets back out of wait mode! Because I’d told them to wait by the inn before going up to High Hrothgar. All that commentary in my previous post about how it’d be cruel to take a horse up the mountain applies to bunnies, too! (Hilda, as a goat, arguably might actually have gotten farther than the horse. On the other hand, she would have been extremely tasty to the critters you have to fight on the way up.)

But fortunately, retrieving your pets is easy. All the pets in the Pets of Skyrim content have spells to summon the pets to you, so I just used those to get Hilda and Thistle so I could make them follow me again.

(And I gotta admit, it’s kind of amusing to see a goat and a bunny keeping up with me on my horse. Which makes me wonder how many pets I can have following me before it starts becoming a performance hit. And certainly, having too many pets following me in a close quarters dungeon would be a liability. But I’ll worry about this when I need to.)

Here’s another benefit to having a horse: if an NPC by the side of the road or trail tries to attack you and they’re on foot, you can go “Fuck you, asshole! I’m on a horse and I’m faster than you! BYYYYYYYE!” as you gallop off.

So when I passed an Orc along the snowy trail leading back towards Haemar’s Shame, he yelled “You’re mine!” The fight music started up. And I didn’t have to care, because I could just gallop on my merry way. Hee.

I stopped in Riverwood on the way back to Whiterun, just to help get into the habit of stopping wherever I can on a journey; it adds to the RP. And it turned out to be a damned good thing, because Alvor actually had some steel boots with a Resist Frost enchantment on them! They were expensive, and they ate into the stock of gold I was building up to try to buy Breezehome. But given the experience I’d just had on High Hrothgar in the previous session, learning that enchantment seemed extremely necessary.

Back in Whiterun, I spent time shopping, making new camping supplies, and going up to Farengar’s enchanter table to destroy the aforementioned boots. A nice relaxing end to a fairly good session.

Next time

Now that I have Lightning, I should be able to take advantage of this to ride over and hit Halted Stream! Because I will want to come out of there with as much iron as possible, and it’ll be very helpful to have the horse to get back to Whiterun without draining my Stamina!

Screenshots

No screenshots this time.