In Which Marwyth Saves Sai Sahan and Selfora

Another drop of sessions involving my ESO alt Marwyth! Main action featured in this post: saving Sai Sahan as part of the main plot; infilitrating No Shira Citadel as part of the Thieves Guild plot; saving the town of Selfora as part of the main quest in Deshaan; and helping the Argonians of Silent Mire fight off attacking slaver pirates.

Play by play

• Play dates: 6/27-7/4/2023
• Session numbers in this run: 28-34

All dates

• Writs and ship robbing

Wednesday the 28th

• Did a circuit near Alinor to get enough mats for writs
• Welenkin Geyser fired off so jumped in on that action
• Ran the next phase of the main plot, rescuing Sai Sahan from the Halls of Torment
• Just to switch it up, took Abnur Tharn with me as my companion this time; he is totally an asshole but I think Marwyth’s oddly kind of okay with that 😉
• Rescued Sai and got him safely back to the Harborage
• Leveled up to 31; two skill points at that point, between the level up and finishing this quest
• Hoofed it back over to Davon’s Watch, at which point I got pinged by Varen again, but held off on that for now
• From Davon’s Watch, wayshrined over to Mournhold
• Went off to the Mages Guild to report in to Valaste and run the next phase of the Mages Guild plot, to get the Fork of Horripilation and the Wabbajack; played pretty much like Gyllerah’s playthrough
• After doing that, took a Mages Guild daily from Alvur Baren; he sent me off to the Hall of the Dead in Windhelm to get the “About Face”, a lot more on this below
• Picked up side plot involving helping a priest by locating drunken revelers lost in the place
• Also picked up side plot involving a mage named Malana, who wanted me to help her kill Lodorr the necromancer and his lieutenant, Ulfnir Ice-Blood
• Surprising absolutely no one who’s played an Elder Scrolls game for more than five minutes, Malana turned out to be evil and I had to take her out too
• Lodorr’s ghost tried to snark at me, only to realize he couldn’t control me since I had no soul, sucks to be you, Lodorr!
• Got his crown as a memento
• Leveled up to 32 on my way out of the dungeon
• Returned to Mournhold to turn in the quest and got a small set of rewards
• Boinged back to Cliffshade for inventory cleanup
• Since I got a dye stamp off of level up rewards, experimented with how it looks on various costumes, but didn’t commit to spending it yet
• Boinged back to Gyllerah for a while to buy style pages, as per Gyllerah’s posts

Friday the 30th

• Bought Fezez the merchant with crowns, and spent some time positioning him on the pillow in front of the downstairs fireplace, so he gets to be downstairs cat while Ezabi is upstairs cat <3
• Meanwhile, boinged back to Abah’s Landing to move the Thieves Guild plot along
• Had to go meet Silver-Claw’s contact at his fancy shop and ask him about getting a servant’s uniform
• The guy was willing to sell me one for 900 gold, or, he’d be willing to consider the option of my retrieving a uniform from a client who hadn’t paid him; went for that option
• Went over to the Sailor’s Rest, broke in there, and stole the uniform
• Proceeded outside of the city towards No Shira Citadel
• Found Velsa and conferred with her; got the objective to get the three bits of passphrase, and then use those to actually get into the citadel
• Had to get past a lot of hostile Iron Wheel NPCs, some of which did actually spot me, and blew through a lot of invisibility potions
• Had to look on the wiki to find the correct way to actually get in, since the area was large and complex
• Got sidetracked when I found an exit out into Hew’s Bane’s general territory, but came back in through that exit when I realized it wasn’t going to be useful
• Made it into the citadel and found the guard who was all PLEASE DON’T KILL ME and agreed to knock himself out with his own sleeping draught
• Snuck further into the place, stole some evidence, and overheard some incriminating conversations
• Jumped over a few pressure plates
• Overheard another incriminating conversation suggesting that merchant lord Cosh was in league with the Iron Wheel
• Finally got out again after having to fight a couple more hostiles
• Came out a secret entrance on top of a tower, but couldn’t see any useful way to get down from there, so teleported back to Cliffshade and then wayshrined back into Abah’s Landing
• Reported back to the Thieves Den to check in with Zeira, and snarked at her when she lit into me
• Zeira went “whoa” at the evidence I presented her and decided she was going to have to process what to do next, and sent me off to get some rest for a bit
• Boinged into Mournhold to move the Deshaan plotline along a little further
• Came out of Mournhold and got hailed by Jakarn, who seems like quite the rogue from looking up him on the wiki; did not however engage with him for now
• Instead followed the quest marker to track Vox to Selfora
• Showed up there and found an injured NPC outside the town who told me the place was practically destroyed and overrun by ghosts; got objective to escort her to the inn
• Got taken out by the ghosts the first time I tried this but successfully got past them the second time through, made it to the inn, and spoke with the survivors holed up in there
• Got objective to go check out the temple; went in there and found one non-hostile spirit who admitted his memory of what the fuck had happened was cloudy, but he directed me to find some holy water I could maybe use to put out the magical fires all over the town
• Tested the water on a flame within the temple to confirm that this worked
• Echo of Vox showed up and bitched at me
• The Forlorn One gave me a vision of Vox showing up and destroying Selfora with the weapon Veloth’s Judgment
• Went back out into the town and used the holy water to put out a couple of fires and rescue a couple more people, and get them to shelter in the inn
• Elynisi, the first woman I’d found, asked me to look for her father in the town hall; found him, but he was dead; the Forlorn One showed up and confirmed that he was in fact the spirit of Elynisi’s father
• He asked me to come with him to the center of town where Vox had left a crater, so he could summon the Echo of Vox and I could use the last of the holy water on binding that echo into the decanter
• This dispelled the ghosts and freed what was left of the town
• Checked in with Elynisi to let her know what had happened with her father
• Another NPC showed up at this point, Acolyte Gami, and asked me to come help at the Shrine of Saint Veloth; agreed to do this, but also realized I had a quest marker showing up on the HUD for someone nearby, and tracked that to be the healer upstairs in the inn
• Took a small side quest from her to find healing supplies in the wreck of the town and bring them back to her for helping the survivors, then headed off to the next mission
• I think it was here that I leveled up to 33?
• The route took me through Silent Mire where I saw a group of Argonians with a quest marker
• Talked to them and learned that Khajiiti pirates were rampaging through their village and taking slaves; the Argonians were not warriors and couldn’t fight them off
• Headed into the area to recover relics stolen by the pirates, the Hist branch and six sacred stones; when I got the branch, had to take out a Khajiiti sorceress
• Leel-Vata then asked me to retrieve a key from a nearby large tent and use it to free captives
• While working on freeing the captives, also found another Argonian nearby, Azeenus, who was super pissed off about the pirates attacking and hadn’t actually mustered the courage to do anything about it himself
• Burned some boats (and found some thieves troves while I was at it)
• Got onto the ship, found the storm warning bell, and rang it, which alerted the captain; took him out and some of the other slaver crew as well
• Finally returned to Leel-Vata and she asked me to take the branch to mark her brother’s house, which did some magic on it and forced him to show up back inside the house
• This freaked him out, and I took him out
• Went back to Vara-Zeen who was Leel-Vata’s mate, and resolved the quest
• Enough adventuring for the moment so returned to Cliffshade

Rescuing Sai Sahan from the Halls of Torment

As a change of pace from how Gyllerah ran this plot, I took Abnur Tharn as my companion on this part of the main quest. This did not disappoint. Tharn is an asshole, but he is an asshole with some very entertaining lines!

“Well, that was unnerving. Can’t say that I’ve ever had to kill a version of myself before. But, I must say, even as an evil doppelganger, I’m a very capable opponent!”

“The day I start considering other people’s feelings before speaking my mind is the day my efficacy as a politician comes to an end. When that day comes, just kill me outright, I beg of you.”

“Well, well, well. Wasn’t that a charming little scene? I can’t wait to mock… to tell Titanborn all about it.”

“Please! Titanborn has all the emotional depth of a frost atronach. But, who knew Sahan was that sentimental? Then again, he did resist her charms. Good thing, too. That truly would have been a farewell kiss.”

I feel like a man who’s on record as having had at least seven wives is not in a position to point fingers about emotional depth. ;D

Getting the About Face

I mostly tried the Mages Guild daily quest because it was a thing I hadn’t done before with Gyllerah, and I was curious about how that worked. But this turned out to be more involved and entertaining than I’d expected, so I’m definitely going to have to do more of this.

The locale for this was the Hall of the Dead in Windhelm, which was a lot bigger than the version of it in Skyrim, ha. It also turned out to be a public dungeon, which, surprisingly, I didn’t have too much trouble running even solo! Most of the monsters were either skeevers, ice wraiths, draugr, skeletons, or ghosts, none of which were much of a problem.

I found Nightblade draining abilities super helpful here, especially when swarmed by large numbers of opponents. I particularly liked the Bow ability I’d picked up that lets me drain health off of enemies with bow shots.

And while running this dungeon I picked up two different side plots as well. The first of these was easy enough, just getting a request from the priest who tended the hall to locate some drunken revelers who’d gotten themselves lost. I found the first guy fairly quickly, offered to help find his two friends, and just had to locate them and get them to leave.

The second side plot was more interesting. This one involved a mage named Malana who told me she was trying to raise and destroy a dead necromancer, Lodorr. She apparently was the prior court mage for Jorunn the Skald-King, and got fired when she was caught reading Forbidden Tomes(tm).

In retrospect, the whole reading Forbidden Tomes thing was probably an indicator that I should not have taken Malana at face value. 😉 But I did at any rate agree to help her, and the first goal was to kill Lodorr himself.

This did not go as expected, because Lodorr’s body didn’t have a crown that Malana really, really wanted. She asked me then to also kill Lodorr’s lieutenant, Ulfnir Ice-Blood.

I took out Ulfnir, got the dungeon’s skyshard, and found the crown… but at that point, I saw that Malana started levitating. And I had a dialogue prompt with her observing that she looked “different”. Cue alarm bells! I decided to not give her the crown, which pissed her off, and she then announced I was going to die.

Marwyth: “Bitch, I’m already dead, Mannimarco beat you to it. Also, you’re gonna hafta wait a goddamned minute, because I also gotta go find the About Face thing I came here to get in the first place.”

So I headed over to the other part of the dungeon to get the About Face, and killed the nearby dungeon boss while I was at it. Then I worked my way back to the room Malana had run into, and took her out even after she raised a bone colossus.

Marwyth: “Yeah yeah yeah. Sweetie, I took out two of those when they tried to stomp all over Stonefalls. Call me when you can summon something I’ll actually care about. Oh whoops wait, you can’t, because I just stabbed you to death. Ciao!”

At that point Lodorr’s ghost showed up, and had snark about “how much fun” he was going to have with me, only he realized I do not in fact have a soul. Which apparently means he couldn’t actually control me? Sucks to be you, Lodorr!

(I wonder if his commentary changes if you run this plot after you run the conclusion of the main quest? I kind of doubt it, given my track record to date in finding little dialogue glitches like this all over the place.)

I got his crown as a memento, and the wiki says I can apparently summon his ghost with it. Not noted on the wiki: why I would actually want to.

New cat in Cliffshade

I splurged on some crowns and wound up spending most of them on getting Fezez the Alfiq merchant assistant! This was a “quality of life in the game” move on my part; I find the ability to quickly sell things on demand is super useful.

So now I have Fezez on the lower floor of my house, in front of the downstairs fireplace. He gets to be downstairs cat, while Ezabi is upstairs cat! And having access to both of them is super helpful not only when I’m doing crafting in my house, but also when running trials as Gyllerah.

(Note: this was the last round of money I gave to ESO before finding out about the Leona Faren situation. I don’t regret getting Fezez, but I will also note here that he will be the last thing I buy for a while in the game unless I hear that the Faren situation has improved.)

Breaking into No Shira Citadel

This was some fun Thieves Guild mileage, starting off with the need to acquire a servant’s uniform for the sake of infiltrating No Shira. I was amused by the the contact Silver-Claw sent me to, a very haughty Imperial tailor who offered to sell me a uniform for 900 gold–or, if I so preferred, to look the other way if I went and ‘acquired’ a uniform from a client who hadn’t bothered to pay him yet.

900 gold seemed steep for an outfit. So I went with option B, given that I am, in fact, a thief.

And getting the outfit was easy enough. It just required me to break into Sailor’s Rest, where I managed to not get dinged for trespassing even though an NPC in the place threw a line that suggested he’d seen me. I don’t know if he was reacting to another player sneaking through, or if he was scripted to throw that line or what. But the important thing was, I got out of there without getting hit with a bounty, or having to fight with anyone.

But here’s the thing about that servant’s uniform: I didn’t actually see the point of having to acquire it. I’m pretty sure I didn’t see any of the Iron Wheel NPCs go non-hostile when I had the disguise on. And there were so many of them that I could not see a way to take a safe path into the citadel while disguised.

At least I didn’t have to pay 900 gold for a disguise that wasn’t helpful! Warning to Future Me as well as any other ESO players reading this: don’t bother to pay for the servant’s uniform if you’re running this plot. (Alternately, if you do know how to use the uniform to safely get into the citadel, drop a comment and let me know!)

Getting back out of the citadel and reporting back to the Thieves Guild had a bit of LOL when Guildmaster Zeira tried to give me shit about going in there by myself. I gave her the snarky “You want to be a leader? Then stop whining and lead” response when she lit into me, since that seemed most in character for Marwyth. Surprisingly, she actually took that well!

(Which raises fun questions about Marwyth here, whether she’s just legit that snarky, canny enough to clue in when snark is required to get a leader to do something, or both.)

Cleaning up ghosts in Selfora

This was a pretty crunchy little plot, finally advancing things far enough along in Deshaan that I got my first (somewhat indirect) exposure to the plot’s main villain, Vox.

And right out of the gate, when I got killed by ghosts on my first attempt to get an NPC to the inn, I identified the need to lead combat with this alt with the arrow barrage. Especially when fighting a large group of hostiles. I can then keep shooting or switch off to the dual wielded daggers, but I have got to lead with the volley first just to up my damage output.

It’s interesting to me that the devastation Vox wrought in Selfora was so severe that there was an echo of her left behind, holding the ghosts in bondage. I didn’t get a good sense of whether that was intentional on the character’s part, or whether that was just a side effect of the power she wields with Veloth’s Judgment. I’m pretty sure it was supposed to be intentional though.

Helping the Argonians in Silent Mire

This was not part of the main Deshaan plot, it was a side thing I walked into just because the route to the next bit of Main Plot went through there. But this was also a pretty crunchy little diversion, and I’m glad I did it.

The Argonians I had to help were specifically not warriors, which set them up as an interesting contrast to Seeks-the-Night, Leel-Vata’s brother. Who was clearly rather more martial of nature than the rest of his little village! And darker of nature as well, as one might guess from his name.

It also meant that Azeenus, the Argonian from whom I got additional side quest action, came across strongly. He was part of a peaceful village, and probably was peaceful himself up until the pirates attacked–yet he was pretty much boiling with the need for vengeance when I found him. And he was ill-equipped to actually express that himself, since he didn’t have the skills to actually do anything about the attack.

So another reason for Marwyth to step in, particularly given that I’d decided she was anti-slavery! Let me help you out with this! Burn boats, you say? Kill the captain of these slaver bastards, you say? ON IT.

I was legit surprised to find multiple thieves troves in the area, too. Which made the side questing not only morally satisfying, but profitable as well!

And I got a LOL off of getting on board the pirate ship where I had to kill the captain. Its layout was kind of like the Hotspur and the Lydia, so I had to actively remind myself DIFFERENT SHIP I AM NOT HERE TO ROB THIS ONE. 😆

Next time

Marwyth’s next post will feature finishing up the plot in Deshaan, beginning the zone questing in Stormhold, and moving the main quest a little further along by hitting the Valley of Blades.

Screenshots

Editing to add

• 11/25/2023: Restored missing gallery.