In Which Marwyth Joins Some Guilds, Picks Some Pockets, and Robs Some Ships

A bunch of my ESO posts lately have been gigantic, since I’ve been jamming a bunch of days into them. But with this new alt of mine I’m pulling that back some, just because there’s been a lot of stuff to cover, and I’d be writing clear into next month if I tried to cover it all in one post.

So here’s one where the major highlight was joining the Thieves Guild!

Play by play

Play dates: 6/5-6/8/2023
Session numbers in this run: 7-10

Monday the 5th

Got level 16 armor geared up and dyed, after visiting the Guild island
Boinged to Hew’s Bane
Immediately got the Thieves Guild skill line which is all just passives
Also got a jackal pet <3
Met NPC Quen who wanted me for a job “acquiring” a treasure
Took a boat to Windhelm and met Quen at the docks there; she and I headed to Fulstrom Homestead
Had to try to sneak in and make it to a partition to get into the main estate, which let me learn how to evade guards with lanterns and that I should in fact evade guards with lanterns
Also learned about hiding spots highlighted in yellow; Paul had mentioned these, but this was the first I got to use them
Got killed a couple of times through the process of trying to reach the partition, which meant I wound up losing some stolen things to guards
Finally made it in and reached the skull with Quen–but we were BUSTED, OHNOEZ
Apparently Quen had sent word to the Thieves Guild of her intentions and the Iron Wheel intercepted her written message, OOPS
Surrendered the skull (because Marwyth is not an idiot, and she and Quen were outnumbered)
Got knocked out by a guard and chucked into a cell with Quen
However, got found by an Argonian named Walks-Softly, who gave Quen a Windhelm guard uniform so she could sneak out
But he hadn’t expected me, so he and I had to sneak out through the catacombs, which were full of draugr and spiders; Walks was not happy about the spiders
Looted a lot of urns just because Marwyth was all fuck it I’m stealing something
Killed the spider boss finally and got out of the catacombs with Walks
Took boat back to Abah’s Landing
Walks recommended I go to the Thieves Guild as the Guildmaster wanted to talk to me
Got intercepted by a guard though and killed again so lost all the stuff I stole 😛
Bounty was still hot though so I had to sneak my way into the Thieves Guild den
Explored the place and met the Guildmaster, Zeira, who invited me into the Guild
She was amused that the chief inspector had mistaken me for a Guild member already, and wanted to know if I wanted to make it official; I accepted
Got a costume of “Thieves Guild Leathers” which basically seem to be a Light Armor version of the Outlaw style, and not to be confused with Thieves Guild armor
Spent more time exploring the Thieves Den since I had bounty on me still and didn’t want to emerge back out into the city just yet
Found the tip board and got a beginning directive to pick some pockets and swipe some treasure
Found the fences and a general merchant and a banker
No crafting stations in the den though o.O
Finally boinged back to Cliffshade to do inventory managing and stow things for Gyllerah

Tuesday the 6th

Started in Cliffshade
Boinged back to Davon’s Watch; decided to go ahead and find the Harborage just to get that out of the way
Same general playthrough as Gyllerah’s, intro to background of the Five Companions
Leveled up to 17 when I finished that and got a skill point for that as well as the level up; put both skill points on Bow passives
Tried to head back into Davon’s Watch, but immediately got pinged by the Prophet again, so came right back to the Harborage and ran rescuing Lyris from Coldharbour
Tried to go to Ebonheart to do plot, only to realize I was full up on loot from Coldharbour, so boinged back to Cliffshade for emergency loot dropoff
Then came back out again and took the Marbruk wayshrine back to Davon’s Watch
This time made it to Ebonheart, coming around the coast and the ridge where the Daen Seeth Dolmen is
Was immediately pinged by the Prophet to come back to the Harborage again, but decided he was going to have to hang on
Got found by Nilthis, the messenger who wanted me to run the same “convince all the councillors” plot I ran in Ebonheart as Gyllerah
Headed into the city to get my bearings and find the other guy I was supposed to be talking to for the Ebonheart Pact
While doing that, talked to Naril Heleran who wanted me to steal a bottle of wine for him; I’d talked to this guy before as Gyllerah, but this time I actually agreed to do it
He advised me that the “nightflowers” in the inn would know more about how to get past the innkeeper to get the wine; put that on pause though to go run the plot I was actually there for
The guy I had to talk to was actually outside the city, so headed out and to the west to find the camp at Vivec’s Antlers
Talked to my contact there (though actually talked to him after I talked to the captain standing next to him, and got the actual plot first rather than the “hi yes you’ve come to the next plot location” mini-reward)
The captain wanted me to go rescue some survivors who’d been covered in mud by attacking dreugh
The fourth survivor I found told me Lieutenant Galyn was imprisoned on the Covenant ship, so headed over there to rescue her
Had to fight my way past Covenant forces, though tried to sneak when I could
Got inside the ship and found an entirely different prisoner first, a priestess who wanted to know if Vivec had sent me; Marwyth was really not on board with that idea, and denied it firmly
But the priestess asked me to help her anyway and wanted me to anoint the skeletal remains strewn along the beach with sacred oil; agreed to do it as long as the priestess got herself to safety
Headed back out again and started fighting dreugh and anointing skeletons
Had to boing back to Cliffshade again though to whittle down the inventory
Boinged back in via the Ebonheart wayshrine to get in range
Hoofed it back out to Vivec’s Antlers and this time got that wayshrine too; also hit two skyshards
Returned to anointing skeletal remains until I had 9 of them, then found the priestess and told her it had been done
Then moved back to the Coral Heart plot and found Sings-With-Reed, Galyn’s aide, who asked me to take three of her eggs and plant them in the coral formations
As I did this, the mage leading the local Covenant forces projected in to taunt me; back off bitch, I’m busy!
Got the eggs planted, and Sings began to commune with the coral; we headed into the heart chamber, so she could become one with it
Covenant mage showed up and Galyn and I took her out
Sings told me to take the Coral Heart so it could be safely used to keep the other Brother of Strife from breaking out the same way the first one had done
Reported back to Commander Holgunn who was now on site; he asked me to proceed to Fort Virak and help them out
At this point I leveled up to 18; got the brochure for the free inn room and a free Imperial bed, so went to go claim the room in Ebonheart
Which, conveniently enough, was in the same inn with the wine I had to steal
Got the room first, and then talked to the nightflowers who totes hit on me; learned from them that the innkeeper was very distractable
Got a lizard from the Argonian quarter and some flash powder from a nearby alchemist’s house
First attempt to steal the wine went wrong, grabbed the wrong goddamn drink ;P
Also got spotted and fled out the door, but used one of my counterfeit edict scrolls to clear the heat on me
Second time through tried the flash powder again, and this time hit the Nightblade ability to go invisible for just long enough to snurch the wine, which worked!
Sold the wine to my contact, and decided that was enough adventuring for Marwyth for the night

Wednesday the 7th

Picked up in Cliffshade
Grabbed the dye stamps I’d bought as Gyllerah and oh good this definitely made the Thieves Guild leathers costume look more interesting, not just straight up monochrome brown
Boinged back to Hew’s Bane
Tried to do some pickpocketing in Abah’s Landing to satisfy that intro quest, but only managed to successfully snurch a small number of things; decided to try again when it was dark
Went outside of the city and did some exploring
Found Bahraha’s Gloom delve and took local quest from NPC outside, who needed me to unbind some captive spirits
Went in and took out a bunch of necromancers
Skyshard was hard to get to and I couldn’t figure out how so skipped that for now
Freed the required three spirits to charge the amulet I was given, and used the amulet to recharge a seal in the place
Took out the primary delve boss and got out again
Returned to the city and gave the amulet back to a contact there
Tried a bit more pickpocketing now that it was dark–mostly unsuccessfully; two different NPCs actually caught me before I could rob them 😛
Explored more of the city and found where the crafting stations were
Went to go meet Guildmaster Zeira outside the city; she found a dying member of the Iron Wheel as I was walking up
Snurched a message off of him that demonstrated the Iron Wheel were targeting Velsa, the former Guild member Zeira thought was selling out the Guild
Since she hates Velsa’s guts she asked me to go warn Velsa the Iron Wheel was targeting her
This required me to sneak into Velsa’s villa and get past all her traps; made it in and was amused by seeing other players trigger said traps, LOL
Reached Velsa by jumping down into her garden where I found her talking with a Khajiit shop owner, Silver-Claw
Velsa agreed to talk to the Guild if and only if I helped her with a favor, involving Silver-Claw; he’d had his warehouse forcibly taken over and wanted a ledger back out of it
Velsa and I went to break into the place, which required me to get into the warehouse district–the entire area of which was a trespassing zone, FUN!
So had to find a sneaky way through and remember to utilize all the hiding places I could find, and be mindful of when the guards went by
A bit of hilarity involving other players jumping into the same baskets I was hiding in, see below, LOL
Caught up with Velsa who kept watch for me while I got in and stole the ledger out of its hiding place
Had to get back out of the warehouse district, so again, more sneaking and hiding in baskets
Finally reached the entrance to the Thieves Den and gave Silver-Claw back his ledger
Went into the den to talk to Zeira about bringing Velsa in
Fenced the items I’d successfully pickpocketed so far; also laundered a few items I wanted to keep
Picked up a side quest to go retrieve a sailor’s lost pipe
Also picked up a side quest from Quen when I found a note from her addressed to me
Reported back to Zeira and saw her very snarky conversation with Velsa
Then finally returned to Cliffshade for inventory management

Thursday the 8th

Picked up again in Cliffshade
Went to Daggerfall to hit the ships I was reading about as good targets for thievery ;D
Got a pretty good haul off of that!
Boinged back to Abah’s Landing for thievery action
Hit the Thieves Den to fence most of the stuff I took, and laundered some of the things I wanted to keep; this bumped my Legerdemain to 2, and unlocked the passive that would boost my Pickpocket chances, fuck yeah
Went back out again and attempted a little more pickpocketing, then went out to run the plot to retrieve the sailor’s lost pipe
This required me to hit the Shark’s Teeth Grotto delve
Hit a skyshard on the way, just trying to reach the place
Delve was a good one, mostly
Local plot was an orc in charge of the Shark’s Teeth being pissed off that a rival group had hijacked their grotto; she sent me in to paint her group’s sigil on various locations in the place
Killed a bunch of bandits, lions, and kotu gava (yuk)
Hit the skyshard in there too
Lots of unusual traps scattered all over the place, some of which I did trigger ;P
Didn’t kill either of the delve bosses, but did get an Outlaw style sheet off of killing a random lion, this time for legs 😀 😀
Found the sailor’s pipe
Finally painted all the symbols and got out again to report back to the orc
Was pretty full up on inventory at this point even after calling in Ezabi a couple of times, so boinged back to Cliffshade for loot dropoff and selling some stuff
Hit Marbruk’s local crafting stations just to see what if anything I could make with Marwyth, and sell
Nabbed the skyshard in the Mages Guild while I was in there, which gave me a skill point, so used that to get the pickpocketing boost in Legerdemain 😀
Saved Marwyth’s current build on the Armory station but didn’t do a new one yet, still pondering if I want to
Paused to switch back to Gyllerah so I could use the Outlaw legs stylesheet and make Guards of Night’s Silence at the Guild island, then bring those back for Marwyth
Switched back to Marwyth, cleared out the inventory, and grabbed the level 20 gear
Boinged back to Abah’s Landing and returned the pipe to resolve that quest
Took another quest off the board
Took another stab at pickpocketing and got a few more items, and for that matter also just snurched a lot of things out of containers whenever I was near one and suitably hidden
Found Quen on her rooftop hideout and got her next quest pointer, asking for help investigating her father’s history with the guild
Went back to the fence for another drop of pickpocketed things but still had one to go
Very close to leveling up to 20 so went outside the city for a little while and killed a few critters
Came back in and finally pickpocketed last required item
Also joined both the Mages Guild and the Fighters Guild
Of course I also immediately started seeing the messenger who was all “the Guild has need of you, comrade”; hold up, lady, I literally just joined!
Returned to the Thieves Den and reported back to Kari about successfully doing all the pickpocketing; resolved that quest, and leveled up to 20 😀
Which let me use the gear set I’d made as Gyllerah, though I still needed Outlaw helmet, shoulders, and boots! At this point, I mixed and matched with Thieves Guild

Raiding Fulstrom Homestead for a treasure

This action kicks in almost right after Marwyth had her turn being killed by Mannimarco and chucked off to Coldharbour. But not entirely! As per Marwyth’s last post, I did have quite a bit of action in Stonefalls before finally boinging off to Hew’s Bane to join the Thieves Guild.

I shall assume for narrative purposes that maybe Marwyth had a bit of delayed traumatic reaction kicking in here. She’s not as indifferent to the needs of the Pact as she might like to pretend. But between that and getting killed and all, it’s all a trifle much. So I figure she just hit a breaking point in these sessions and ran off for a while.

When I reached Hew’s Bane, I immediately unlocked the Thieves Guild skill line. Which surprised me a little–because at this point I hadn’t actually joined the Guild yet. So I’m not sure why you don’t get the skill line once you officially join? Was the idea here to just speed things along a little? I can see an assumption being made here that if you’ve got access to the Thieves Guild DLC to begin with, and you make a point of going to Hew’s Bane, chances are you’re gonna join the Guild.

But still it seemed a little weird to me. Because surely people that aren’t thieves come to Abah’s Landing? Unless all those guards are protecting all the thieves from other thieves. 😀

I also got a pet jackal, which, for the record, is frigging adorable.

And pretty much as soon as I got into Abah’s Landing, cue the encounter with Quen, and the quest to “acquire” some treasure! Can do! Why the hell not, it’s a way better idea than having to deal with the aftermath of Coldharbour!

I quite enjoyed the quest. Quen and Walks-Softly, the two main interesting thief NPCs, were highly entertaining characters. And I liked how the circumstances were set up well to introduce the player to the mechanic of guards with lanterns, and hiding in strategically located baskets.

From what I see on the wiki, the mechanic of “you have to hide from guards with lanterns” is only active in places specifically associated with the Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, or Morrowind DLCs. Which explains why I haven’t seen it before now. I do have access to the Morrowind DLC–but I haven’t actually seriously played the Morrowind DLC content. So I’ll be interested to see how this plays when I take Gyllerah over to Morrowind.

And this plot also served well to introduce the recurring antagonists, the Iron Wheel. More on these guys as I progress through the Thieves Guild plot stuff!

Actually joining the Guild

Returning to Abah’s Landing with Walks-Softly was a lesson in making damn sure I stay the fuck out of the way of guards while I still have a hot bounty. (I got better about this in subsequent sessions!) I did however at least make it back to the Guild, where I met the Guildmaster and got the official invitation to join up with them.

Amusingly, the Iron Wheel guys we’d confronted back at Fulstrom Homestead had thought I was already Guild, so Zeira pitched it to me like this:

“If the great Chief Inspector Rhanbiq thinks you’re part of the guild, who am I to disagree? We need good thieves—capable thieves, like you and Quen—to pull ourselves out of the gutter. So, care to join the Thieves Guild? We have nowhere to go but up.”

I liked Zeira! Though I gotta admit that I was torn between liking her, halfway expecting her to turn out crooked (because Mercer Frey), and missing good ol’ Brynjolf. Zeira’s not nearly as flamboyant as Brynjolf. But once I started meeting other characters involved in this plotline, I missed Brynjolf a bit less! See below!

So naturally, I accepted her offer.

Spent a bit of time exploring the Thieves Den. I was a little disappointed to discover joining up didn’t give me any actual direct way to get back there fast like there is in Skyrim–but then, with a few exceptions, fast travel isn’t a thing in ESO. Likewise, Skyrim’s Thieves Guild gives you a bed to sleep in in the cistern, but since character sleeping also isn’t a thing in ESO, I didn’t get any kind of bed or anything.

I found the Den’s fences, the (slightly more legit) non-fence merchant, a Guild trader, and a banker. But I did not find any crafting stations, which was slightly surprising.

And I got a costume of “Thieves Guild leathers”, which appeared to be a Light Armor version of the Outlaw style of armor. Which I knew I was going to want to aim for as Marwyth’s primary armor, but in medium style, not light. And this was also not to be confused with the actual Thieves Guild style of armor.

This does make me wonder though why the other factions you can join don’t even give you any kind of costume? I did pick up some Mages Guild costumes as Gyllerah, but I don’t think either of those were part of the process of joining the Guild. And a whole lotta nothing for the Fighters Guild, too.

Returning to the Harborage

Of course, given that I am in fact the player character, and because I didn’t want to completely bail on the Main Quest or on the Ebonheart Pact stuff, Marwyth did follow up on finding the Harborage. Partly because I was curious to see what her version of the Harborage was going to look like, compared to Gyllerah’s.

Answer: a much drier cave!

I ran the “intro to the background of the Five Companions” thing with the Prophet, then right on the heels of that, also ran rescuing Lyris from Coldharbour and getting the intro to Abnur Tharn.

Not too much variation from Gyllerah’s playthrough, running these two phases of the plot. Though I have the sense that Marwyth probably likes Tharn a bit more than Gyllerah does. She has more appreciation for his snark, I think.

Interlude: emergency loot dropoffs

I had to do two different loot dropoffs in Cliffshade while playing on the 6th. And that made me decide a few things:

Was very grateful that I had set up a keybinding to teleport right back to my primary home, because it did mean I had quick access to drop off stuff I wanted to keep, and
I definitely had to get Marwyth more inventory space, because after getting used to Gyllerah’s roomy 170 inventory slots, having only 70 was bullshit XD
Made sure to pick up the Counterfeit Edict scrolls Gyllerah had stashed, figuring that Marwyth is going to need them more than Gyllerah will

I’d gotten a free chest at level 18 while playing Gyllerah. I did not get an free chest when Marwyth reached that level, darn. This wound up factoring into my inventory management in subsequent sessions!

Plot action in Ebonheart

Making it to Ebonheart in these sessions led me to overlap with some stuff I’d run already as Gyllerah, but also some stuff I’d specifically declined to do before. I got the quest for helping the local Ebonheart leader get all three Pact factions in the city working with each other, and also got the quest to steal some wine from the local inn. And this time, given that Marwyth is a thief, I agreed to steal the wine.

I did not, however, start either of these plots immediately, because I wanted to work on the actual Ebonheart Pact stuff first. So I didn’t linger in the city–the contact I needed to find was actually west of the city itself.

This was pretty decent plot action, too. The first interesting part of it was running into a side quest, when I rescued a priestess on the Covenant ship I had to infiltrate. She wanted to know if Vivec had sent me, which Marwyth denied; I figured Marwyth was not on board with that idea. But the priestess asked me to help her anyway, and while Marwyth was super dubious about this whole “go sanctify these remains for me” request, she went ahead and did it as long as the priestess promised to get herself to safety.

I imagine Marwyth really not being happy about sanctifying remains for a god she’d been brought up specifically not believing in. But she did it because she promised she would. And she may be a thief, but she keeps her word when she gives it!

(As I write this, particularly in light of additional things to come in Marwyth’s forthcoming posts, I’m seeing a narrative arc here where she does eventually commit to following the Tribunal. But at this point, not yet.)

When I came back to talk to the priestess after anointing the remains for her, I noticed that she had dialogue prompts for me to ask her who Vivec was. I declined to take those, on the general grounds of y’know I think I know who Vivec is already, being a Dunmer and all. LOL.

Once I returned to the Coral Heart plot, that let me reach the next interesting part. Sings-With-Reed, another Argonian mage working for the Pact, wanted me to place three of her eggs within the coral structure nearby, because apparently this coral was self-aware. And she wanted to convince it to make the dreugh back off of attacking Pact fighters.

And apparently the Pact plotline is all about Argonians uniting with things, because Sings also wound up becoming one with the coral and suffusing herself into it. I think this probably wigged Marwyth out a little. As of this point, she’d now seen multiple Argonians sacrifice themselves for something they believed in, and I suspect that started playing into her subconscious and kept her coming back to continue to help out the Pact.

Once I got the Coral Heart from Sings and took it back to Commander Holgunn, I swung back to Ebonheart. I’d leveled up to 18 at that point, and gotten the brochure for a free inn room, so this seemed like a good opportunity to grab the one in Ebonheart. Which, conveniently, was the same inn with the wine I needed to steal!

So I went ahead and ran that plot too. Brief but entertaining, and gave me some practice with what to do when stealing stuff. (Namely: make goddamn sure I’m invisible before I grab the thing. And also, grab the correct thing.)

Enough Pact stuff, let’s get back to stealing!

Swung back to Hew’s Bane after that Pact excitement–and then proceeded to learn about picking pockets in Abah’s Landing for that beginning Thieves Guild quest.

Wow, that was hard. I think I like the pickpocketing mechanic in ESO, though I’ve only done a tiny bit of pickpocketing in Skyrim so I can’t really properly compare the two games in this regard. I liked, though, that your chances of pickpocketing stuff very much depended on multiple factors. Like, what kind of person you were trying to rob–because hitting a beggar was definitely going to be easier than, say, a guard or a noble. And it also depended on whether you got spotted by your mark on your way in!

So since picking pockets in broad daylight definitely seemed problematic, I went outside of Abah’s Landing to explore until dark, and come back later.

Which led me to the Bahraha’s Gloom delve. This was a good crunchy delve, with a nice local plot, but its skyshard was tough to get to. And I couldn’t figure out how to reach it on my own, so had to swing back to this later. (More on this in a forthcoming post.)

When I came back to the city, though, I found that picking pockets after dark wasn’t noticeably easier than doing it in broad daylight. Two different NPCs caught me before I was able to rob them. Oops.

So since I was tired of pickpocketing, I shifted to actual Guild plot. Which led me to another encounter with Zeira, with whom I discovered evidence that the Iron Wheel was targeting Velsa, a retired member of the Guild. At this point Zeira got rather more interesting–because she hated Velsa’s guts, and only very grudgingly asked me to go warn Velsa that she was being targeted.

I went off to do this, which meant I had to sneak into Velsa’s villa, and get past all her traps. More sneaking practice! And also, some amusement value as I did see other players setting off her traps.

Once I actually reached Velsa, she rapidly became my favorite character encountered in this plotline so far. She’s great. She has no time whatsoever for anybody else’s bullshit, and given that she’s also a Dunmer, I think Marwyth found herself a role model. ;D

Teaming up with her to break into Silver-Claw’s warehouse–inside the warehouse district, the entire area of which was a trespassing zone–gave me a lot more opportunity to practice stealth infiltration, too.

I wound up finding how ESO does this rather more plausible than Skyrim’s Sneak mechanics–but only to a point. Skyrim’s Sneak is just crazypants, with the whole thing with NPCs failing to find you when you are literally shooting them from two feet away.

But ESO’s Sneak has a measure of crazypants as well. You can have a pissed off guard right on your trail, but as soon as you jump into a hiding place basket, the guard’s all “WHERE DID SHE GO MUST BE MAGIC”.

Let me also note that during the warehouse infiltration, I also saw other players, multiple times, jumping into the same basket i was hiding in. LOLOL. Clearly they are fucking gigantic baskets. ;D

Player 1, in basket, as Player 2 jumps in: “Rough day, huh?”

Player 2: “Yeah, totally.”

And at least in one case, the other player also kept jumping right back out of the basket I was in, and re-pissing-off the nearby guard. That player also had a companion with them–and I think maybe the companion was causing the guard to remain on alert?

That player and their companion wound up just going after that guard. Which gave me a lovely distraction, so I jumped back out of the basket and la-la-la’d my way to the final door I had to escape through.

Also, I’d like to note that I also kind of adore Silver-Claw. He has a very florid way of speaking, and unlike many Khajiit NPCs, actually speaks in first person instead of third. It’s nice to see the Khajiit NPCs varying it up a bit. This supports the idea I’ve had for a while that some Khajiit are just much more fluent with Tamrielic than others, and that a bunch of them may also be actively code-switching depending on who they’re talking to.

Silver-Claw, though, seemed to have his own personal florid style, which made him stand out for me even in comparison to other Khajiit NPCs I’ve seen in this game as well as in Skyrim. So yeah, I kinda love him. <3

Concluded with this action with alerting Zeira that I’d successfully retrieved Velsa, and I got to see their extremely snarky conversation. Boy howdy do these two not like each other. I wonder what the backstory is here? I’m avoiding looking it up, just to see how it plays out. 😀

Second interlude: robbing the Lydia and the Hotspur

I went searching for recommendations about how to level your Legerdemain, which got me forum posts highly recommending raiding a couple of ships that are always docked in Daggerfall, the Lydia and the Hotspur.

First and foremost, LOL: the Lydia! When I mentioned discovering this ship to Paul, he cracked a joke about wondering whether that ship has a way of getting in front of other ships.

Second: it sure is super easy to steal from both of these ships! There are NPCs nearby, but none of them will interfere with your getting into the fore or aft cabins, or into the hold. You can basically loot both ships with impunity.

And once I found these ships, it was hilarious to see how many other players were also hitting them up to steal from them. On this first raid of the ships, I saw at least four or five other players also hitting them, some of whom were visibly sneaking.

All the players: HI WE ARE TOTALLY BEING INCONSPICUOUS DON’T MIND US WE’RE JUST TAKING A STROLL ONTO YOUR SHIPS LALALALA

Since I’ve been doing all of Marwyth’s sessions since this set starting off with hitting those ships, I’ve also come to wonder if the NPCs on them ever wonder why the hell they even bother to dock in Daggerfall since they can’t keep cargo for more than five minutes.

Paul thinks the ships’ owners are totally running an insurance scam. ;D

And yeah, that first time visiting the ships got me good loot, which is why I’ve kept at it. It’s also letting me level up Legerdemain pretty quickly! More on this to come.

In terms of this particular set of sessions, though, it definitely helped out with the pickpocketing quest. Once I was able to unlock the Legerdemain passive that boosted my pickpocketing chances, that helped me finally get that quest finished off. Which was a bit of relief, because I was feeling kind of guilty about robbing all those beggars!

Shark’s Teeth Grotto delve

I liked this one in terms of plot, and the Orc leader of the Shark’s Teeth was entertaining.

However, I found the delve kind of a pain in the ass to run. It was large and complex, and the quest markers for where you had to paint the Shark’s Teeth sigil were confusing! I had to struggle to find the actual hot areas to trigger the painting, which made that process take a lot longer than it should.

Plus, there were a bunch of unusual traps all over the place. And once I realized this, it also slowed me down getting through there, since I had to take the time to watch for the signs of such traps.

Joining the Mages and Fighters Guilds

Finally did join both of these guilds with Marwyth, as of the last of the four sessions covered in this post. I was kind of thinking that if nothing else, I’d like to try running the dailies for these guilds. I haven’t done much of that with Gyllerah.

But in character, I also suspect that Marwyth was taking it as an excuse to get in and scope out those Guildhalls!

Of course, as soon as I joined the Fighters Guild, I started getting Bera the messenger showing up going “The Guild has need of you, comrade!” And I was all hold up there, lady, I literally just joined!

Next time

More action moving the plots along for the Harborage, all three Guilds, and the Pact!

Screenshots

Editing to add

11/25/2023: Restored missing gallery.
10/18/2024: Converted gallery to native WordPress one. Changed header graphic to the one I’m using on later Marwyth posts.