In Which Gyllerah Saves the Oracles of Azura and Hunts a Demon Weapon

Swinging back around to getting caught up on Gyllerah’s action in ESO. This set of sessions is mostly all about running prologue plots–specifically, finishing up the Azura oracles plot that acts as the prologue to Morrowind, and the Demon Weapon plot that acts as the prologue to Northern Elsweyr.

Play by play

Play dates: 6/22-6/28/2023
Session numbers in this run: 246-252

Thursday the 22nd

Writs
Took a chance on finishing my hat for the master writ since I was at 87.5 chance of success; hat successfully made! Turned it in and got 72 vouchers
Ran a couple of treasure maps after confirming that some of the styles I needed were available via treasure chests
Hit a treasure map in Deshaan and also ran a few antiquities while there
Then hit a treasure map in Stonefalls
Since this was right near Othrenis, also ran the plot to talk to Onuja and Mavos and get the info on how to bind Balreth
Skipped the side plot involving Bala because I didn’t want the poor girl to kill herself again 😛
Successfully finished that plot and got objective to follow up with Garyn at Ash Mountain
But for now returned to Cliffshade and Marbruk, to sell things and do inventory managing

Friday the 23rd

Writs
Hunted for locale of treasure map in Deshaan; boinged in via Mournhold
Spotted a Dwarven construct ruin not far outside the city but elected not to deal with it for now
Went for a treasure map in the Rift and accidentally pissed off a mammoth on the way, oops
Hoofed it over to Faldar’s Tooth to try to run the place and rescue the second missing oracle
Found a captured Pact soldier in there who I freed; he asked me to look for his brother
Found the brother and freed him too, and he told me to meet them at the Riften docks
Freed the second oracle from the pocket realm of Oblivion
Found the brothers at the docks after and got a bit of gold
Headed off to the third locale, Mephala’s Nest, in Stonefalls
Freed Rhea and got directive to check back in with Azura in Pariah Abbey
Azura bid me to take out the culprits who’d gone after her oracles
Rhea pegged the location as Cold-Blood Cavern in Shadowfen, so headed over there with her
Found a bandit’s journal indicating he’d been tricked by false gifts from what seemed to be a normal woman, but Rhea ID’d her as the shrike Dyzera and urged me to recover the bandit’s false gifts so we could use them to draw Dyzera out
Spotted a statue of Clavicus Vile!
Ran the ruin and got the gifts; killed a bunch of Skaafin on the way through
Found a portal into Dyzera’s realm; jumped in there and confronted her
She was extremely flirtatious and kept calling me beautiful, and also said she couldn’t wait to hear me scream
Took her out and returned to Rhea
She and her fellow oracles cast a seeing to try to figure out WTF had been going on; they got a rather disturbing pile of visions, all of which basically added up to YEP SOME DAEDRIC PRINCES SURE ARE UP TO SHENANIGANS, the conclusion of which I’ve already seen in Summerset of course
Azura took over Rhea’s body to talk to me for some final words, warned me there would be more shit coming, and that she was going to retreat to prepare
Heh, forgot to check with Rhea after but looked up her closing dialogue on the wiki
Afterwards, hoofed it from there over to a treasure map locale east of Stormhold
Did some more crafting
Bought a couple more styles so I could get rid of backlogged mats (notably: Hazardous Alchemy for belts), and that was enough for the night

Saturday the 24th

Writs; couldn’t make everything in first go, had no garlic
Pause to switch over to Marwyth, and came back after Marwyth was not able to steal some garlic off the ships; bought Garlic from Huz in Alinor and finished off the writs that way
Did a bunch of crafting as well to try to clear out backlogged mats
Started on level 30 gear for Marwyth; made both daggers, helmet, and jack

Sunday the 25th

Writs
Crafting at various points during the run to clear out inventory backlog
Began the Demon Weapon quest by going to talk to Abnur Tharn
This required me to find him in the manor house in Vulkhel Guard, where I saw him having the encounter with the Redguard treasure hunter Tharayya, which I’d first seen as Marwyth in the Mages Guild in Davon’s Watch
Tharn gave me the pitch for “fabulous weapon we must acquire to put an end to the Three Banners war”, and in his general asshole-y Tharn kind of way, of course he has grandiose ambitions about this
He casually mentioned being stalked by an unknown party, but sent me off to find some dusk mushrooms to use as a gift for a Khajiit loremaster on Auridon
Went to Bewan on Auridon to find these mushrooms, first of a couple of familiar delves
Got the shrooms and hoofed it northeastward to find Dagaril-dro at his camp
He told me about how to find three moon-singers who would give me clues about how to get the info Tharn wanted, i.e., ‘triangulants’ to find the weapon
Tharn opened portals to all the places we needed to hit, and the first one was the Redfur Trading Post; boinged over there and spoke with that first moon-singer
First moon-singer’s clue pointed off to Wormroot Depths, another delve I’d been to before
Ran that delve, and reached the bit where I had to find a secret chamber
Solved a puzzle to get access to the triangulant, and had to figure out which moon pillar to activate based on the clue in the inscription
Second moon-singer was at the Baandari Trading Post, and that clue pointed off to the Black Vine Ruins delve
Here, I also picked up a side plot involving a pair of brothers; didn’t like this plot very much, see below
After that, returned to the business at hand and found the second concealed chamber
Solved second puzzle and got the second triangulant
Tharn portal-boinged us off to Rawl’kha for the third moon-singer, who was young and inexperienced but getting into the groove of her storytelling rhythm
Her clue pointed us at Jode’s Light, which was a little ways farther away from Rawl’kha than the first two delves had been from their equivalent locations; I got sidetracked trying to find a good way over there out of the city
Found Northern Woods Dolmen and ran that
Finally made it to Jode’s Light, at which point Tharn’s “stalker” showed up: Khamira, a Khajiit working for Gharesh-ri, the Speaker to the Mane
She gave me more info on what was actually going on, including how Tharn’s half-sister had taken over Rimmen; Khamira’s goal was to make damn sure Euraxia didn’t get her mitts on the weapon
Went into Jode’s Light and confronted Tharn about this
Grudgingly agreed with him that either way, Euraxia should not get the weapon, and went ahead and got the third triangulant
Killed the boss Yenadar and found his journal; he apparently was fighting off a dro-m’Athra spirit, and by ‘fighting’ I mean ‘was possessed by’
Portal’d out to Tharn’s camp, and Tharn proclaimed the weapon had to be in the Halls of Colossus
Khamira showed up and demanded to come with us
Tharn told me to take care of any pending business I needed to do before going with them to the Halls of Colossus
Boinged back to Cliffshade for the night
Read Yenadar’s journal and got quest to go tell his sister what happened to him

Monday the 26th

Writs; had everything but barley needed for Markarth Mead
Shifted over to Marwyth to run her writs and rob the ships to get ingredients; came back to Gyllerah after I accidentally used the barley out of that
Did a lot of antiquities on Artaeum, but was unsuccessful looting crates and sacks there for barley
Finally returned to Alinor and just bought some damn barley ;P
Made more level 30 gear for Marwyth, and crafted and sold other things for ongoing inventory maintenance

Tuesday the 27th

Writs; had almost everything except a Denima rune and ingredients for a Panacea of Magicka, so went out on a harvesting run near Alinor
No joy, did not find the right rune
Had three copies of the Enchanter survey report for High Isle so boinged off to run that
It was a part of High Isle I hadn’t been to before, right at the Augury Monoliths
Easy rune gather, and I was able to do three rounds of it quickly, though only got a Denima on the third round ;P
Boinged back to Alinor and finished remaining writs
Paused to jump to Marwyth; bounced back and forth a few times working on the rest of Marwyth’s level 30 gear, and finally got her successfully outfitted!
Ran antiquities in Blackwood; did a simple, an intermediate, an advanced, and a master
Tried to hit an Oblivion portal and wow did that not work; pretty much swamped in the second area
Will have to consider what to do about this and whether I can recruit guild for help
Item got off the advanced antiquity lead was an idol; brought that back to place in Cliffshade, which required me to rearrange where I had the smaller tree in the main room
Hit S’ren-ja in Reaper’s March to do the “go talk to Kala about what happened to her brother” plot
Decided to tell her the truth about what happened, and she wasn’t happy, but she thanked me for being honest with her and gave me the quest reward
Headed off to Stonefalls to do the binding of Balreth; played out pretty much the same way as with Marwyth, including getting the parallel plot involving closing scamp caves
Played it up through the point of successfully binding Balreth, and having Walks-in-Ash ask me to go talk to Arethil
Returned to Cliffshade
Spent most of my remaining crowns on some Dark Elf furnishings and put them in the Flaming Nix Garret: bed, nightstand, a couple of lanterns
Did final inventory managing and logged off for the night

Wednesday the 28th

Writs and a bunch of crafting
Bought a bunch of styles with money I’d banked up so i could clear out rarer mats from my bank\

Finishing up the plot with Azura and her oracles

The rest of this plot was pretty fun. Good delve action, and good dropping of foreshadowing about Clavicus Vile and Mephala being involved in shenanigans. (I mean, the statue of Vile and the delve literally being called Mephala’s Nest weren’t exactly subtle.) Nothing involving Nocturnal that I spotted, but to be fair, that’s kind of on brand for Nocturnal!

I find this game’s take on Azura interesting by comparison with Skyrim’s take on her, just because she seems a bit more full of herself. She had several lines along the lines of “I am the epitome of beauty and terror”, and such. I wasn’t entirely sure I liked that necessarily, just because Azura is one of my favorite Daedric Princes in Skyrim. But on the other hand, helpful to be reminded that all the Daedric Princes, even the ones that are comparatively benign, are going to be full of themselves. It’s part and parcel of the package.

Had to giggle, though, about the shrike Dyzera and how hardcore flirtatious she was, even at a female character. Flirtatious with a heaping side helping of sadistic, too. News flash, honey: I literally chopped Molag Fucking Bal in half, I’m not screaming for you.

All in all, good strong prologue plot. I’m probably also going to have to run this one as Marwyth, I think, just because I’m currently feeling inclined to run the entirety of the Daedric War plot with her, just because I feel like the bits that take place in Morrowind and the Clockwork City are probably more relevant to her as a Dunmer. And I’m feeling like it’ll help me keep better track of things if the Aldmeri Dominion character does Dominion stuff, and the Pact character does Pact stuff, aside from anything explicitly required by Cadwell’s Silver.

The Demon Weapon quest, featuring Abnur Tharn

I liked this one too! It was highly entertaining to be dealing with Tharn again after doing the whole Coldharbour plot. But there was excellent Khajiit mileage as well.

The moon-singer storyteller characters were great, and I particularly liked the ritualistic closer of “These are the words, and the words are true” for each piece of the tale they told the player.

And while a couple of the delves I had to hit for this plot were familiar ones, I also liked that Abnur Tharn actually acknowledged that. In particular, he mentioned visiting Wormroot Depths with me before, while we’d been looking for Sai Sahan. I very much appreciated that bit of continuity.

Khamira was a great character too, nicely fulfilling the obligatory “character who’s going to snark the fuck out of Abnur Tharn” role that I feel somebody has to play in any plot involving Abnur Tharn. ;D I liked her working for Gharesh-ri, another nice callback to previous playing I’ve done. (Though I was amused that I had the opportunity to ask her who the Mane was; I declined to take that option. Gyllerah knows that! I guess that question got put in to account for players running this plot before running the Aldmeri Dominion plotline.)

Side plot at Black Vine Ruins delve

Most of the time I like the local plots when I run a delve. This one, not so much. The idea was to help a couple of brothers, one of whom was ill and the other of whom wanted to find a particular sap in the delve to save his life. And I got a choice when I found the second brother wounded further into the delve: I could either get the sap for him immediately, or escort him back to his ailing sibling.

I chose the latter, at which point the wounded brother gave me active shit about not caring about saving the sick brother’s life.

And I was all wait what? Because I didn’t get any opportunity at this point to then go and get the damn sap now that the brothers were safely reunited. I feel like that was legit unfair, on the grounds that I chose to take the wounded brother back to his sib because he was wounded, in a delve full of dangerous bandits who had been the ones that wounded him, rather than making him follow me through the dungeon. I chose to prioritize this guy’s safety, and he gave me shit for it. And I feel like Gyllerah would totally have then gone to get the sap as soon as she was sure the wounded brother was in a safer spot. But I never got that option.

This was not satisfying.

And also, kind of surprising, just because a lot of the time when I get choices like this in ESO, there’s usually some way to accomplish the quest objective no matter which way I choose. I’m down with important choices like this having consequences, sure. But I’m not thrilled about a choice path that explicitly leads to not actually accomplishing the quest objective and then getting shit for it, especially when your line of reasoning was “look, my dude, you’re hurt, let me get you the fuck out of here”. That’s not fair.

Next time

Gyllerah’s next post will feature finishing up the Demon Weapon plot; some side plot action in Stonefalls; some Cadwell’s Silver action in Stonefalls; taking another stab at a trial with my Guild; and the usual boatload of writs and crafting!