In Which Marwyth Moves a Bunch of Plots Along

This set of sessions are a mixed bag! Did a little of everything, moving the plots along not only for the main quest, but also the Thieves, Mages, and Fighters Guilds. Plus, side helpings of crafting, writ running, and robbing of the ships in Daggerfall!

And also, finding Billy Boyd’s character in the game finally, which was a delightful surprise. <3

Play by play

Play dates: 6/9-6/12/2023
Session numbers in this run: 11-14

Friday the 9th: Thievery

Boinged around a lot on Friday the 9th, so these notes are by general theme rather than strict play order
Finished getting armor together, and once I’d made it as Gyllerah, boinged off to Guild island to dye it at the outfit station, fuck yeah 😀
Robbed the ships in Daggerfall and boy howdy was that profitable, got the entire Imperial style motif book and a bunch of useful treasure
Boinged to Abah’s Landing to get it fenced and stuff
Hailed by a Guild member on the way in, who told me Zeira wanted to see me; conveniently, I was headed to the Guild anyway
Fenced a bunch of stuff; wasn’t sure if I could hand stolen stuff off to Gyllerah, so didn’t launder stuff at that point
Talked to Zeira and got her next quest to investigate a local merchant lord; she asked me to go talk to Walks-Softly at the harbor; decided to hold on that for now though
Instead ran the plot to go get the lost engagement ring, which took me back to the first delve I’d run before in this locale, the one with the difficult skyshard, Bahraha’s Gloom
This time I killed all the bosses, got the ring, and finally figured out how to get to the skyshard once I looked up the hint on the wiki
Returned to Abah’s Landing to turn in the ring
Took message from Bera near Guild in Abah’s Landing re: Sees-All-Colors wanting to talk to me in Davon’s Watch; did not yet follow up on that though
Explored the Guildhall a little just to see what was in there

Friday the 9th: Harborage

Boinged off to Davon’s Watch, returned to the Harborage, and got the next phase of that plot: finding the sneaky Imperial
Davon’s Watch version of this plot required me to sneak through a trapdoor in an abandoned stable stall
Killed once by the sneaky Imperial but got him the second time through
Cue the surprise contact with Abnur Tharn!
Did not yet return to the Harborage to follow up with the Prophet, though

Friday the 9th: Tales of Tribute

While derping around Davon’s Watch, decided to finally talk to Sorine Gerard just to get her to shut the fuck up about Tales of Tribute 😆
She sent me off to High Isle to talk to her associate, easier now that I have an inn room there
Found said associate, who turned out to be a Bosmer–and who sounded strangely familiar, until I realized OMG IT’S BILLY BOYD 🤩
Brahgas gave me a walkthrough on how to play Tales of Tribute, after he had me go talk to his gaming club’s leader
Won the test round, and got a small packet of winnings

Friday the 9th: Crafting

Derped around Davon’s Watch and got Marwyth certified in six of the seven crafting lines (did Jewelry later once I got Marwyth access to Summerset)
Took a while doing Marwyth’s first round of writs, most of which were done in Davon’s Watch
Did the last couple writs in Marbruk as I boinged back to Cliffshade to check on resources
Also confirmed that I could not in fact put stolen things in Cliffshade’s chests, so had to run over to Marbruk’s Outlaw Refuge and get the fence in there to launder those items before i could put them to use as Gyllerah

Friday the 9th: Mages Guild

At Mages Guild in Davon’s Watch, hailed by Vanus Galerion with the hook for the prologue quest to Summerset; didn’t do that yet again either, but may later
At Mages Guild in Marbruk, took message from Adelle Montagne re: needing to check in with Valaste; I was heading for the Alchemy table in there though, so didn’t bother with that for now

Saturday the 10th

Started off in Cliffshade
Did Marwyth’s writs
Hit the ships in Daggerfall, then hit Abah’s Landing to fence all the things
Returned to the Harborage to follow up on the previous RP, and resolving the quest re: the creepy Imperial
Leveled up to 21, and got two skill points at once! Dropped one on Legerdemain to get the perk for bumping up how many fence transactions I can do daily 😀
Tried to go back out to hit Davon’s Watch for more plot, but got pinged by the Prophet to come back; went back in, and had the projection from Abnur Tharn to talk to
Ran the plot to rescue Abnur Tharn from Coldharbour–twice! Because I was in the middle of final combat in the boss chamber when pizza showed up, and I had to go to the door to get it 😆
Coming into Davon’s Watch, met by a banekin who told me to come find Abnur Tharn
Checked in with Valaste at the Mages Guild and got initial task from her to recover some books
Then found Tharn downstairs in a mage outfit and got the directive from him to go hit a delve
Notably, there were two instances of Tharn in the Mages Guild; see below
Checked in with Sees-All-Colors at the Fighters Guild in Davon’s Watch
Did initial part of the Fighters Guild plot just outside the city; met Merric and Aelif, got as far as Merric getting kidnapped by Doshia
Headed over to Ebonheart after that
En route, found the ghost of Bala, the woman I’d had to tell at Othrenis that her dead lover was an asshole–and apparently she’d killed herself; found her body later in the water near Ebonheart 🙁
In Ebonheart, ran the plot to get the Nords, Argonians, and Dunmer all working together to defend the place
Boinged back to Cliffshade after this for inventory managing
Did one more round of robbing the ships in Daggerfall, but had only enough inventory space to hit the Lydia
Came back to Marbruk and fenced stuff at the Outlaw Refuge

Sunday the 11th

Writs
Hit some of the areas I hadn’t gotten access to yet with this alt, went in via the various inn rooms; notably, this got me access to Alinor
Ran Woodworking survey near the plantation in the western part of Stonefalls, that I’d hit before as Gyllerah
This also let me finish up the quest with the Ashlander who wanted me to find her missing Argonian friend; gave her the Argonian’s dagger
She told me she was going to head into Deshaan, and that maybe we’d meet up again
Tried to head into Shadowfen to hit some surveys there, but didn’t have Shadowfen or Stormhold unlocked as this alt yet
Did a lot of hunting around for cornflower to finish up the Alchemy writ and finally just had to log into Gyllerah so I could buy some ;P
Checked the Abah’s Landing Guild traders to see if they had cornflower; answer, no
But this also put me within range of talking to Walks-Softly to move the Thieves Guild plot along, so I did that
He first asked me to go steal a log from a captain, or else eavesdrop on her plans; I opted for stealing the log, in no small part because of the potential to steal other stuff belowdecks ;D
Tried to keep throwing my Nightblade ability to cloak myself in shadow but that thing only lasts for three seconds, and I got spotted when the timing of my throws of the ability got off, oops
Got dinged with a trespassing bounty, so had to maintain a low profile and hide in various corners until the bounty wore off
Went to go talk to Quen and found her hanging out on top of some crates at the dock; got her directive to go spy on an Imperial
Parked somewhere handy to overhear the conversation he had with a contact
Got directive from Quen to then go meet up with Velsa
Back in Stonefalls, hit the Inner Sea Armature delve for Valaste, to get those four books she wanted
This turned out to be a Dwemer ruin; killed a bunch of spiders, spheres, and assorted bandits in there
Got the skyshard and killed the primary boss, which turned out to be a sphere, and that surprised me; I was expecting a centurion
Shalidor’s ghost showed up as I picked up the last book
Returned to the Guild to give Valaste the books
Chucked the book into the arcane fire to make it legible so she could summon Shalidor, who then recruited me to help him get books back from Sheogorath
Went ahead and ran the first part of that, going into the Shivering Isles
Got past Haskill and his test with the portal and scamps and seducers
Killed Gutstripper the Clannfear and got Sheo’s attention
Ohnoez! he has cursed the books!
Took the one he allowed me to have back to Valaste, who was dismayed that Shalidor wouldn’t be able to help her
Leveled up to 23 when I finished that plot
Finally took quest from Vanus Galerion to run the Summerset prologue
Robbed the Lydia and the Hotspur again; got up to Legerdemain of 5 fencing the loot off of that ;D
Also worked on bumping up Marwyth’s inventory space, got her up into the 90’s

Monday the 12th

Ran writs in Alinor, and also got certified in jewelry so I can do that writ too with this alt
Hit the ships in Daggerfall
Boinged back to Marbruk to fence and launder my ill-gotten gains in the Outlaw Refuge
No other notable action as main action on the 12th was with Gyllerah

Robbing ships for fun and profit

This set of sessions was the one where I scored the entire book for the Imperial crafting motif, which was super satisfying. <3 I’d seen that thing being sold by Guild traders for stupendous amounts of money, so I hadn’t been expecting to get that any time soon!

Marwyth couldn’t use it yet, of course, so I chucked it over to Gyllerah’s inventory. And now I can make all the Imperial gear!

Marwyth’s robbing of the ships though is certainly also bumping up my store of crafting materials, regardless of which character uses them. I can see some interesting questions here of whether Marwyth, as long as she’s kind of a ghostly intruder on Cliffshade, accidentally lets it slip to either Ezabi or Gyllerah herself that some of these supplies she’s been dropping off aren’t entirely on the up and up. 😉

Ship robbing led me to discover for sure that I could not place stolen items in Cliffshade’s chests. And that in turn led me to find Marbruk’s Outlaw Refuge–conveniently just across the way from Cliffshade’s front door! So I started establishing a pattern of popping down there to fence or launder all my daily hauls off the ships.

And I kind of adore the snarky commentary off the various fences. Ethlinor in particular has this great line:

“Some people can be so uptight about things like ‘ownership’ and ‘the law.‘“

LOL.

Checking out Tales of Tribute

Mostly, I did this because I was sick and tired of Sorine Gerard bellowing her “HEAR YE, CARD SHARPS AND COLLECTORS” message every time I went by her, not only in Alinor but also in Davon’s Watch. So I basically wanted her to shut the fuck up.

I’d tried talking to her once before as Gyllerah, and had declined to actually take her up on the offer to go talk to her associate. This time though, I did that. And it was certainly easier now that I’ve got an established inn room on High Isle. I didn’t even have to go to the trouble to figure out how to get there.

Her associate, Brahgas, turned out to be a Bosmer. And as soon as he started talking, I kept thinking, “Why does this Bosmer sound familiar? And also, why is he Irish?”

And then I realized, “OMG. It’s Billy Boyd.” Who is, of course, not Irish; he’s Scottish. (Which I honestly hadn’t known until I looked him up to confirm! But now I do know!)

I knew Boyd was in the voice credits for ESO, just because I’d seen his name in the list of voice actors at one point, looking up the voice credits on the wiki. I just didn’t know where his character was. So now I’ve finally found him! Yay!

(And it turns out he’s actually got two characters. The other one is in the Reach, which I also now have access to, so I’ll need to keep an eye out for his character there.)

Once I knew Billy Boyd was the voice of the guy giving the game tutorial, I was a lot more invested. All of Brahgas’ lines were delightful; Boyd clearly had a grand time voicing him!

That said: not sure what I think of the actual game yet, though. I don’t feel like I got a good sense of how it works, and I’m not sure if it’s a thing I’ll want to do more of. I’m going to have to try playing some of the novice Tribute players I see in various cities to see if I like it at all.

And there does seem to be at least a bit of further plot involving Brahgas and Sorine, so even if I don’t really get into the game itself, there should at least be some questing to do there. I’ll get to that eventually.

Plus, it was at least a new thing to do in the game! And that’s good.

Crafting

When I created Marwyth, I’d planned on not bothering to craft things with her. But I changed my mind–mostly because I was finding it a little annoying having to constantly switch back and forth between characters just to move gear around.

Mind you, I’m still having to do that, just because Marwyth doesn’t have the same crafting skill levels built up that Gyllerah does. But on the upside, it’s a way to make extra money.

Since I did this set of sessions, Gyllerah has handled the majority of crafting, still. But I like having the option to make lower-tier stuff as Marwyth. It lets her exercise those skills, and also, it saves me having to switch characters occasionally.

Harborage action

Nothing terribly different than when Gyllerah did this plot leaping out at me, but I can note at least a couple of things!

One: pizza showing up right in the middle of my final boss battle to rescue Abnur Tharn from Coldharbour taught me that it’s possible to have an entire quest reset if you log off in the middle of it. Whoops! (But it couldn’t be helped, I did have to go to the door to get the pizza!)

And two: as I wrote in my last Gyllerah post, I’m a little mortified that it’s taken me this long to realize that Cadwell is voiced by John Cleese. Now that I know this I have no earthly idea why it didn’t register with me before? Like with Billy Boyd, this is another thing I don’t think I properly picked up on just because I didn’t study the voice credits on the wiki in depth.

And heh. Now that I know Cadwell is in fact Cleese, it actually throws me out of the character a little, because I can’t hear him as anything but John Cleese now.

Mages Guild

As with the main quest, so too with the Mages Guild: nothing too different here from how Gyllerah’s run this plot.

But when I got to the point of having to find Tharn in the Davon’s Watch Mages Guild to pick up his quest to go run a delve with him, I was amused to find two instances of Tharn present in the building. Because there was an entirely different Abnur Tharn on the upper floor of the place.

That Tharn was wearing Imperial gear and speaking to a Redguard woman, a treasure hunter. This turned out to be the plot hook for the Demon Weapon quest! I didn’t engage with that as Marwyth yet–but more on this quest in a forthcoming Gyllerah post.

Also, I will definitely have to pay more attention to Valaste’s character details this time through.

Othrenis epilogue

On the way to Ebonheart to do more plot there, I went by the ghost of Bala–the woman I’d had to tell about her dead lover actually being an asshole, even as a ghost.

It turns out she’d killed herself. And I found her dead body in the water near Ebonheart, not long after.

I was sad to discover this. Reading up about the plot on the wiki, I saw that apparently there was no way I could have resolved this plot that wouldn’t end with Bala committing suicide.

I do not think I will be running this plot again. :/

Restoring Order plot in Ebonheart

This played almost the same as when Gyllerah did it, with a few minor differences.

Running the Argonian part of this plot, I noticed that when I was walking around in their part of the city, NPCs explicitly told me “You’re not welcome, Dark Elf” until I actually resolved the plot.

This time through, I had no problems following the Dunmer spy guy. It was probably helpful that Marwyth has Champion points dropped onto improving her sneak radius.

I think Marwyth probably felt really fucking weird actually praying at the shrines of the Three, even more than Gyllerah did. Marwyth is a Dunmer, but she’s also an Ashlander. I envision her as having grown up being taught that the Tribunal were false gods. And it probably unnerved the hell out of her to see projections of servants of the Three actually showing up and talking to her when she prayed at those shrines.

I expect she found it highly suspicious at the very least. But probably also had a grain of doubt about whether the Ashlanders were right or not, if just praying at a shrine of the Three like that could immediately summon projections of their servants.