In Which Kendis Finds an Elder Scroll, Crimson Nirnroot, and Ancestor Glade

Getting caught up on Kendis! This is a three-session post, predominantly featuring getting the Elder Scroll out of Blackreach (and getting a bunch of crimson nirnroot while down there), and then heading off to Ancestor Glade and Darkfall Cave for Dawnguard action.

Play by play

• Play dates: 4/3, 4/7, 4/14/2023
• Session numbers in this run: 56-58

Monday the 3rd

• Started off at Heljarchen
• Did some alchemy to burn through some ingredients
• Fast traveled from there to Bloodchill Cavern to get near Alftand
• Rode over on Yngvi
• Fought en route:
  • Ice wraith
  • Snowy sabre cat
• Finally found a way around the back of the crevice to get over past the standalone tower to the ruins of the expedition
• Entered and started running Alftand
• Gogh pissed off Serana a couple of times; damn good thing he’s set essential ;P
• And of course with both of them along, stealth not really an option, so we took out a bunch of automations and Falmer
• Leveled up to 50 partway through Alftand; took Health bump and first Magic Resistance perk in Alteration
• Reached the final centurion and took it out
• Made it down to Sulla and Umana and took both of them out as well
• Entered Blackreach
• Took out the dwarven sphere by Sinderion’s field laboratory
• Entered the lab and got all the goodies, including the crimson nirnroot and the field notes
• Started running Blackreach and looking for the crimson nirnroot, and again, stealth not really an option XD
• Killed more Falmer, once Serana and Gogh attacked them
• They also got aggro at the giant stomping around Blackreach so we took it out too
• Tried to make it up to Reeking Tower but couldn’t find the way
• Took out wisps and wispmother near Silent Ruin (and triggered assorted red dots on the HUD with the noise of that battle, probably at the Pumping House?)
• Left off partway through the search, right around Silent Ruin, and saved for the night

Friday the 7th

• Picked up where I left off in Blackreach
• Needed 29 crimson nirnroot but went ahead and got the full 30
• Made it to the Tower of Mzark to get the Elder Scroll
• Got out again and realized just outside I’d forgotten to grab the Lexicon for Septimus, oops
• Went back in to fetch it; fortunately that wasn’t difficult
• Boinged to Fort Dawnguard to check in with the Scrolls (and also to sell stuff, since I didn’t want to risk triggering the Traveler again selling things in an actual city)
• Found Dexion and ohnoez he is blind
• Got the directive to find Ancestor Glade
• Sold stuff to Sorine and Gunmar
• Got Gunmar to give me five rounds of Smithing training
• Boinged back to Septimus’ outpost to give him the Lexicon
• Asked him why he wanted to open the box and triggered Morrowind reference! Septimus threw a line about how it was thought to be destroyed by the Nerevarine! Awesome
• Got his blood extractor to get the five blood samples
• HI HERMAEUS MORA! Decided to go the route of “I’ll never join you” with Kendis
• Boinged to Alchemist’s Shack to ride over to Avrusa’s farm and give her the crimson nirnroot
• Before I got very far, surprise frost dragon showed up, and since it landed pretty much right in front of me, whacked it to death with my sword
• Showed up at the farm to find the farm’s guard fighting with an Imperial soldier
• Did not intervene in the fight, because honestly I wasn’t sure which one of them to defend and suspected that if I helped kill the guard I’d get a bounty; the Imperial soldier won the fight
• Gave Avrusa the crimson nirnroot and got her quest to get the Jazbay grapes
• Hoofed it from there to find the spot to get Swims-in-Deep-Waters’ lucky fishing hat (on the same island as Geirmund’s Hall)
• Avoided the treasure hunters hanging out on their little island
• Got the fishing hat, so now I can at least trigger when it’s raining
• Still don’t have the appropriate set of four rainy weather fish though
• Boinged to Windstad to check on status of building things there
• Attacked by bandits as soon as we showed up, but Serana and Gogh and I made short work of them
• Determined I was still short on building materials though
• Boinged down to Lakeview to fetch things out of the cache there
• Boinged back to Windstad and filled out some more of the building there
• Put a few books into the library wing
• Saved there for the night

Friday the 14th

• Picked up again at Windstad
• Boinged to Lakeview to drop things off
• Went out to hoof it to Ancestor Glade
• Blood Dragon showed up so had to go at it, between Lakeview and the bandit camp just across the stream
• The dragon took out a couple of the bandits; they were dead by the time I got over there, and I wound up only fighting one myself
• Spent a lot of time hiding behind a rock to avoid fire blasts, then came out of cover to zap the dragon with lightning
• Hoofed it over to Ancestor Glade from there
• Ran the glade and got the ancestor moths swarming, then read the scrolls and got the location of Darkfall Cave
• Got vampire attack squadron on the way out and threw the dremora around to help Serana and Gogh out with that
• Boinged to Whiterun to sell a few things, including gear off the vamps
• Rode out from there on Yngvi, and made it into the Reach
• Took the road fork that led past Old Hroldan Inn
• Found the camp with the dead lovers; Serana raised the dude in the middle of our fight with the bear
• Cut through Soljund’s Sinkhole
• Made it up the hill from there and found Red Eagle Ascent and Sundered Towers
• So went ahead and got the sword after taking out assorted Forsworn there
• Continued overland from there, found Four Skull Lookout
• Got the Crusader gear since the bandits came at us as soon as I was nearby; didn’t necessarily want the Crusader gear as it is very judgy, but hey, bandits
• Continued overland from there; rode my way down onto the rocks along the river, Yngvi is clearly very agile 😉
• Marked Harmugstahl for the map
• But also realized I was almost loaded up on inventory and that was no damn good when about to run Forgotten Vale
• Boinged to Markarth and sold assorted things
• Boinged to Hendraheim to drop off the Crusader gear; had to do it twice because I’d forgotten I had to actually wield shields to put them on shield racks, and one of the Crusader shields got pissy at me about that
• So put all the armor on a couple of mannequins, and put the two Crusader weapons in a display case
• Boinged to Lund’s Hut to go overland to get back to Darkfall Cave
• Stopped at Rebel’s Cairn to run the rest of the Red Eagle plot
• Made it to Deep Folk Crossing and got the third aetherium shard there
• Passed Mor Khazgur on the way to Darkfall Cave
• Finally reached Darkfall Cave and started running it
• Made it to Gelebor and got the mission to visit all the wayshrines with the ewer, and kill his brother
• Paused at the point of beginning Darkfall Passage
• Saved there for the night

Commentary

Not too much to comment on here in terms of anything new or notable; all of this action is stuff I’ve done before on the Switch. What things I can make any commentary on here are basically things I’ve noted in previous playthroughs, including Gogh being at risk of pissing off Serana by way of his storm atronach zapping her, and Serana raising things right and left, as she does!

I will say this, though. I hadn’t actively planned to go after the Crusader armor that you can get at Four Skull Lookout; as I noted in Shenner’s playthrough, that gear is super judgy and I am not enthused by the notion of my armor and weaponry judging me! But I took it anyway for display purposes, and because I got close enough to Four Skull Lookout for the bandits there to come after me. So this was more of a “fuck you, bandits, I’m taking all your stuff” thing than anything else.

(Maybe eventually I’ll try a playthrough of a character that the gear would accept. But this is not that playthrough!)

So this is a short post! But that’s okay. 🙂

Next time

I’m in the middle of the final stages of Dawnguard now, so Kendis’ next session or three is most likely going to be pressing through Darkfall Passage and running the Forgotten Vale.

I still have a pending schematics quest for Sorine, and I still need to get Florentius. So I will swing back to do those before rallying the Dawnguard to go after Harkon. For narrative purposes, since I have to cross the entire map anyway to get from the Forgotten Vale back to Fort Dawnguard, I’ll assume Kendis stopped to do these other things on the way.

Screenshots

Editing to add

• 11/25/2023: Restored missing gallery.
• 10/18/2024: Converted gallery to native WordPress image.