In Which Gyllerah Recovers the Amulet of Kings

Finally, some more progress on the Main Quest on ESO, as I go with Lyris Titanborn, Sai Sahan, and Abnur Tharn to recover the Amulet of Kings. And then, later on, I go solo to Auridon to fight off a Daedra attack on Dawnbreak.

And as always, lots of writ running and ingredient gathering and periodically adding new decorations to my house.

Play by play

• Play dates: 2/7-2/10/2023
• Session numbers in this run: 120-123

Tuesday the 7th

• Picked up in Cliffshade
• Boinged from there to Mara’s Kiss room to get to Auridon
• Went to the Harborage to talk to Varen
• All hands on deck! Let’s go get the Amulet of Kings!
• Varen opened a portal and we all headed out
• Distinct side thread of Sai Sahan clearly not being as recovered from his torture and imprisonment as he’d like, and Lyris being worried about him
• All three of the NPCs had all sorts of pithy commentary
• Huge amount of Mannimarco projecting himself in to pontificate at us, about how he was going to destroy Molag Bal
• He raised a bunch of the nearby dead warriors; we had like three rounds of that as Sai urged us to get to a couple of shrines of Stendarr to bring down the ward we needed to get through
• Finally made it to the Amulet and had to actually fight Mannimarco, finally; he put up a hell of a fight, and I was slightly surprised that I actually killed him
• Not surprised that Molag Bal yoinked his soul, because someone had opinions about Mannimarco’s ambitions
• Got the Amulet
• We all boinged through the portal back to the Harborage, and Varen dismissed me so everybody would have time to rest up
• Surprisingly, he did not actually call me right back as soon as I left the Harborage
• Went out to derp my way up the beach since I kinda wanted to just fish
• Applied skill point I got off the quest to Clothing, so now I can make the highest tier of light and medium armor, and use Ancestor Silk and Rubedo Leather, awesome
• Did not find any active fishing spots, but did stumble across side plot action which I proceeded to run
• Discovered Silsailen was on fire and had been taken over by Heritance soldiers disguised as Auridon marines, when an NPC ran up to me on the beach and begged me for help
• Killed a few Heritance goons on the beach, and found a suspicious note on one of them that pointed me at a cellar
• Went to that cellar and found the actual marines all tied up in there; untied the leader, Captain Tendil, and he sent me off to retrieve all their gear while he got everybody else loose
• Retrieved their gear and brought it back
• Captain Tendil gave me one of his marines as backup while I continued to pursue saving the town
• Found Elenwen, who I’d been pointed at by the first NPC that approached me
• Elenwen asked me to go find Teldur and help save the village; Teldur in turn set me to saving five villagers
• Put out several fires and killed a bunch more Heritance goons
• Made it back to Elenwen who was all OHNOEZ Teldur has betrayed us
• So I had to break into Valano Manor with my temporary marine follower
• Killed a Heritance goon outside the manor and got a key off of her, which let me get in
• Killed more goons inside the place, and also found Teldur dying, yikes
• He fingered Canonreeve Valano as the actual traitor, so took that asshole out, too
• And after taking him out, also found the skyshard on the terrace
• Taking him down also had the temporary marine stand down from following me, asserting that justice was now done
• Reported back to Elenwen; sorry, lady, your father was the asshole
• Boinged from there to Alinor and ran writs, now featuring Rubedo Leather!
• Had to get some stuff out of the Guild bank but was able to find everything I needed
• Finally boinged back to Cliffshade for the night

Wednesday the 8th, Thursday the 9th

• Ran writs both days, no other significant action

Friday the 10th

• Started in Cliffshade
• Boinged to Alinor to run writs
• Had to get some materials out of the Guild bank but was able to do all seven
• Boinged off to Auridon to run the plot at Dawnbreak
• Had to rescue five villagers as I’d done at Silsailen, including telling one woman that her father was dead, and rescuing a guy from rubble
• Got skyshard from the manor house and got another skill point off of that
• Then had to rescue five Auridon marines from attacking Daedra
• Sergeant of the local forces then sent me into the Abandoned Mine after their captain
• Captain was with a fallen marine and sent me ahead to take out a couple of dremora, who kicked my ass twice, oops
• Third time though I kept moving in circles around them and that let me take them out, as did remembering to use one of my crown meals
• Found a note saying the true target of the plan was Firsthold
• Reported back to the captain and got the directive to head to Firsthold to warn them
• Killed a few more Daedra and got some ingredients
• However, the game was lagging noticeably, so boinged back to Cliffshade 
• Applied skill point to Woodworking so now I’m at 10 on that
• Logged off

Going after the Amulet of Kings

The thing for me about playing four different games in the Elder Scrolls franchise, lately, is how it gives me a look at the history of various interesting artifacts that regularly show up in different games. Dawnbreaker was a big example in ESO, after my being long familiar with it in Skyrim. I’ve seen artifacts from Morrowind show up in Skyrim’s Anniversary Edition.

And now, not too long after playing the opening bits of Oblivion, I’ve seen the Amulet of Kings both there and in ESO.

It all makes me expect that once Elder Scrolls 6 finally becomes a thing we can all actually buy and play, I’ll totally be going “okay so which artifacts are showing up in this game, and when am I going to see them?” LOL.

Which leads me to a quick digression…

Side note about quest rewards for the Main Quest

I’ve seen, several hops into the Main Quest now, that each stage of the quest generally results in a unique reward–I’ve gotten several pieces of jewelry and a weapon or two out of this. Right now I’m stuffing those into my one available storage chest, just because it feels kind of rude to just up and destroy, say, the Titanborn Family Signet.

But it also feels kind of rude to just stuff it into a chest, too.

This is definitely one of those instances where yet again, I get why ESO heavily constrains how many objects you can have and how you can store them. For every other plot I’ve been running, I’ve been almost always destroying the quest rewards for their materials and/or for research purposes.

But for stuff explicitly related to the Main Quest, I kind of wish I could display them. If there’s any plotline in ESO that should have significance enough to your character that you’d want to keep these items as mementos, it’s the Main Quest.

Now for generally obvious reasons, I don’t get to keep the Amulet of Kings. For these thoughts, I’m explicitly focused on all the other items you get, like signets and weapons and stuff. I can totally see Gyllerah wanting at least a special rack somewhere in her house for “the items that led me to getting my soul back”.

That deserves some kind of honor, doesn’t it?

… but anyway, back to the quest

And now, done digressing.

I am at least now to the point of the quest where all the principal characters are now in play. So mechanics-wise, getting the Amulet of Kings was a fairly simple dungeon run. Varen opened up a portal for me, Lyris, Sai, and Abnur to all boing over to Sancre Tor.

Once there, it was just a matter of killing a bunch of resurrected undead, because this is what happens when you’re going up against a powerful necromancer. I was however a bit surprised that this time we actually got to confront Mannimarco directly, and that I got to kill him. And that Molag Bal actually yoinked his soul into Coldharbour.

I expect Gyllerah took an immense amount of satisfaction out of this. Anybody else, she wouldn’t want to consign to torment at Molag Bal’s hands. But Mannimarco, the guy responsible for her murder and for fucking up the world? Yeah, fuck that guy. Molag Bal can have him.

Really, though, my favorite part of all of this was just the pithy commentary from all three of the NPCs with me. This was my favorite exchange:

Abnur Tharn: “Dank corridors, crumbling walls, nauseating smells. This place has all the charm of a Riften brothel. It must feel very much like home to you, Titanborn.”

Lyris Titanborn: “You mean a crypt filled with the rotting corpses of inbred kings and failed statesmen. Must be what it’s like at a Tharn family reunion.”

Sai Sahan: “It is more pleasant in the summer months.”

I do rather wonder how much personal experience Tharn has with Riften brothels. 😀

And, there was a respectable chorus of “shut up, Tharn!” out of Lyris and Sai in response to one of Tharn’s other smartassed remarks, too. Ha!

Still though I gotta call out another of Tharn’s remarks, because he was absolutely correct:

I find it hilarious that Mannimarco chose such a massive projected appearance. He’s obviously overcompensating for something.

Because yeah. Mannimarco’s projections of himself were kind of enormous. Snerk.

I was also kind of surprised that once we returned to the Harborage, unlike with previous stages of this story, Varen didn’t immediately call me back to the Harborage as soon as I was back out again.

This may be a matter though of my not actually setting foot back in Vulkhel Guard? Because I went up the beach from the Harborage, and haven’t set foot in a major city since. (Apparently Alinor doesn’t count for this purpose?)

But that was all fine because I got in some decent side quest action, too.

Saving Silsailen

This was a nice little bit of side action, which I stumbled into entirely by chance. Had an NPC run up to me, as a bunch NPCs in ESO do, and beg me for help. From her, I learned that Silsailen was on fire and under attack by Heritance soldiers disguised as Auridon marines.

I wound up having three parallel mini-quests: 1) freeing the captured marines, 2) helping put out fires, and 3) finding out the true traitor who’d brought about the attack on the town to begin with.

Which, ohnoez, turned out to be the father of the town leader who recruited me to help put fires out. Canonreeve Valano turned out to be another Heritance supporter. Taking him out in his own manor was very satisfying.

Two things stood out for me about this little plot:

1. Valano’s daughter Elenwen, the innkeeper who was organizing rescue of the residents of the town when I showed up, has the same name as the bitchy Thalmor ambassador in Skyrim. This Elenwen, however, was much nicer than the one in Skyrim.)
2. Captain Tendil gave me one of his marines as a temporary follower. So the whole time I was scampering around the town rescuing villagers and fighting Heritance goons, I actually had backup! Which is not something I’m used to when not playing with Paul. So that was kind of neat.

When I started doing battle with him, Canonreeve Valano yelled this at me:

“Fool! You think you can trifle with the Veiled Heritance and live to tell the tale?”

Motherfucker, I’ve been killed by worm cultists, and that only just slowed me down a little. I just killed the guy who masterminded it. And he was the most powerful necromancer in all of Tamriel.

You? You’re a toady for a penny-ante racist dickweed militia. Fuck off. Fuck all the way off. No, further than that. <stabs>

Little sad that I had to report to Elenwen that her father was the asshole, though! “So, uh, yeah, I know you sent me to go rescue your father and make sure he was okay, but just so you know? He was the prick responsible for this entire situation. Sorry! But now at least the town is no longer on fire and overrun with racist dickweed militia, so there’s that? Bye! I’ll be going now.”

Awkward.

Saving Dawnbreak

Running the plot in Dawnbreak turned out to be pretty similar to the one in Silsailen, minus Heritance soldiers and plus fires and Daedra.

This did however finally let me see the local plot-relevant reason to head into the Abandoned Mine, which I’d visited before in prior exploration of Auridon. And I did like the fight with the two dremora, who were a good challenge!

But I was getting odd laggy behavior out of the game as I ran that session. I was seeing multi-second lag between when I initiated certain actions like harvesting ingredients, and when the action actually completed. It didn’t seem like it was impacting my ability to do combat, but I didn’t trust it.

So even though I kind of wanted to proceed to Firsthold, I held off. And rebooted the Deck for good measure, just in case I had any local issues on the device.

Next time

Heading into the home stretch for the Main Quest, now. But kind of in a mood to hold off a little longer on that, and maybe I’ll finish at least the Auridon portion of the Aldmeri Dominion quest line first?

Screenshots

Quick note about screenshots: I found a couple for the previous Gyllerah post that I’d missed, so I have updated that post’s gallery with two more pics.

For this post, here are the new ones:

Editing to add

• 11/25/2023: Restored missing gallery.