In Which Finds-The-Way Joins the Bards College and Stops a Summoning

Catching up with my Argonian character Finds-The-Way in my German Skyrim run. Main action: getting Goldenhills Plantation, joining the Bards College, recovering Noster Eagle-Eye’s helmet, running Dead Men’s Respite, running the Over the Edge plot at Dragon Bridge, reinstating the Burning of King Olaf Festival, stopping the Potema ritual in Wolfskull Cave, and getting the Wabbajack.

Play by play

• Play dates: 8/24, 8/31/2023
• Session numbers in this run: 14-15

Thursday the 24th

• Started in Whiterun and sold a few things to Belethor
• Slept at Breezehome
• Headed out with Lydia to go to Goldenhills Plantation
• Saw Khajiit tents on site but no Khajiit in them
• Couldn’t find horse Kara immediately at the stables, so fast traveled to stables to make her show up
• Mounted up and headed towards Goldenhills
• Encountered en route:
  • Noble on horse with escort, who freaked out a little when a wolf showed up, though I didn’t immediately see the wolf and had to hunt around to find it; horse finally killed it
  • Two different sets of Imperials, one of which had a prisoner, the other of which didn’t
  • Sabre cat, dispatched
• Reached and ran Goldenhills, not particularly different from previous playthroughs, which is good because I didn’t try to bother to read the journals 😉
• Got the key to the place from Rin’s ghost
• Had a bunch of veg on me so went ahead and planted the main field with it
• Got objective to find a steward, will swing back around to that later
• Rode through Rorikstead
• Bandits at crossroad had respawned, so took them out; looted all four of them plus the extra one in the road, and got overloaded from bandit loot
• Robber’s Gorge had not respawned, so safely rode through there
• Proceeded on through Dragon Bridge
• Spotted yet another set of Imperials
• Made it to the stables and Katla’s Farm
• Blood Dragon showed up, so Lyds and guards and I started shooting at it; took a few minutes, as the dragon fucked off out of the way over the ridge for a little bit, not sure what it was fighting with; but then it came back and we finally killed it
• Kara even got in on the fight! What a good horse!
• Dragon slid down the hill towards the water so I had to climb down to loot it and get the dragon soul
• Fished at the Solitude mill fishing spot while down there, and got a carp to add to the initial set of needed fish
• Tromped back up to get Kara and ride into Solitude
• Asked Corpulus for a rumor; got one about joining the Bards College, convenient since I was there to do that anyway!
• Heard Lisette singing The Age of Aggression
• Slept the night, then got up the next morning and sold a bunch of stuff to Sayma at Bits and Pieces
• Also sold things to Angeline and got her quest to talk to Captain Aldis about her daughter
• Headed towards the Bards College
• Went past Gisli and she does not sound pissed off enough in German 😉
• Found Dervenin and got the quest for the Wabbajack though elected not to run it for now
• Went to the Bards College and talked to Viarmo about joining
• Got the quest to go to Dead Men’s Respite
• First, however, decided to go get Noster’s helmet from Steepfall Burrow; this took three tries!
• Take one:
  • Killed by Khajiit assassin at the crossroads leading up to Meridia’s statue
• Take two:
  • Assassin at crossroads again, this time a Dark Elf, and this time I killed him
  • Got farther this time but killed by snow bear who’d been fighting an ice wraith
• Take three:
  • No assassin at crossroads
  • Spotted some Thalmor (without prisoner) going by; did not engage
  • Got snow bear vs. ice wraith again; dispatched both
  • Dispatched second snow bear
  • Made it safely to Steepfall Burrow
• Killed two frost trolls inside
• Got Noster’s helmet! And other loot
• Came back outside, mounted up, and fast traveled back into Solitude
• Gave Noster his helmet back and got Sneak bump
• Sold loot to Beirand
• Went out to get Kara, this time from Katla’s Farm
• Rode over to Dragon Bridge and took room at the inn
• Read note on the desk about the recent guard “suicide”
• Ran the quest for the Steel Soldier armor, nothing new here, just wanted to do it 🙂
• Found the dead guard and swiped his stuff for my guard armor collection
• Then took out Peladius on the bridge and took the armor
• Retrieved Kara, and mounted up since I was overloaded again
• Boinged to Hendraheim
• Put all the Solitude guard gear on a mannequin
• Destroyed some of the armor as well as Peladius’ weapon to get the enchantments
• Leveled up to 22; took Magicka bump and second rank of first Light Armor perk
• Put a bunch of books on empty bookshelf
• Slept the night and headed back out again, for Dead Men’s Respite
• Boinged straight to Robber’s Gorge since that was nearby and still not respawned, good
• Cut through there to get over to Dead Men’s Respite
• Killed a wolf outside of it
• Lydia caught up and we went in to run the place, but Lyds got stuck in the initial chamber for some reason, so I ran the whole place without her
• Summoned periodic Undying Ghost and/or flame atronach
• Draugr triggered the swinging blades trap but I got through that okay
• Got King Olaf’s verse and helped Svaknir take out all the draugr in the boss chamber, by which I mean I mostly let him do that, with support from flame atronach, and I hung back a lot out of the way to snipe at draugr from behind
• We finally took out King Olaf One-Eye
• This time he had an axe rather than a sword, and I’ll take that yes please thank you
• Got the second word for Whirlwind Sprint off the wall
• Did not loot all the fallen draugr as I was already overloaded, but did take the boss loot on the way out
• Found Lydia again
• Got back to horse and mounted up to return to Solitude
• Waited a few hours for the shops to open, then sold a bunch of stuff to Sayma and then Beirand
• Headed back to the Bards College to check in, and saved at the door until next time

Thursday the 31st

• Started off at Bards College; went in to talk to Viarmo about getting the verse
• Played through his filling in the missing bits and taking it to Elisif to present
• Hurray! She’s reinstated the festival!
• See, you weird mammals clearly just needed an Argonian to come in here and fix this for you
• Got instruction to go talk to Jorn, who told to come back and talk to him at twilight
• Sold a few things to Sayma
• Decided to try to run the Wabbajack quest
• But when I returned to the Blue Palace to talk to Falk, saw Varnius triggering the Wolfskull Cave quest, and oh right haven’t actually gotten on Falk’s good side yet with this alt!
• Considered going out to run Wolfskull Cave but figured I wouldn’t do it in time to get back for the festival, so went down to the mill to fish instead
• When I came back, talked to Captain Aldis about Angeline’s daughter
• Went back to the Bards College, but had to wait another hour to get Jorn to talk to me
• Ran the festival, and it got stuck again as per previous playthroughs, but this is fixable in the console so I fixed it
• Got the quest to get Pantea’s flute, then headed out for Wolfskull Cave action
• On the way, got a dragon at the crossroads near Meridia’s temple, which was a livelier fight than usual, with a nearby Orc and a cave bear getting involved in the fight
• Then proceeded up the hill to Wolfskull Cave–which was unexpectedly difficult!
• Finally got through the fight by using the Histskin power, really need to remember I can do that
• Got killed once later in the run as well, but I started quicksaving and wasn’t thrown back very far
• My flame atronach did a lot of the work with the final fight with the necromancers
• Looted all the necromancers and got the hell out
• Leveled up to 23 during running this; took Magicka bump and another perk in Light Armor, i think?
• Quaffed a philter of strength once I figured out what that was in German
• Fast traveled back to Solitude so I could sell stuff to get unloaded
• Headed up to the Blue Palace to report in to Falk
• On the way, talked to Giraud to get his quest to get the drum; also paid him for five rounds of Speech training
• Got Falk’s quest reward, then immediately asked him about getting into the Pelagius wing
• Got in there to run the Wabbajack quest
• Killed a couple of times by Pelagius’ nightmares; once thrown right back out to the Pelagius Wing, second time back to prior quicksave
• Third time through actually zapped everything correctly, then ran the rest of the quest and got the Wabbajack
• Popped into the Bards College to talk to Inge and get her quest to get the lute
• Boinged back to Lakeview and had Lydia stand down for a bit
• Worked on building more stuff in the Armory Wing, and left the Wabbajack there
• Couldn’t start on the Storage Room Wing yet because I ran out of iron
• But making building materials let me level up to 24; took Stamina bump and a Speech perk so I could start selling cheap stuff like iron arrows
• Left a bunch of fish in the aquarium
• Did some alchemy
• Got courier with letter from Falk to follow up on the Potema problem
• Boinged next to Ivarstead; gave Temba her bearskins, and got her reward for that; better weapon than usual, she gave me an elven war axe with a Daedra banishing enchantment on it, nice!
• Boinged next to Riften, and came in late, so went down into the Thieves Guild
• Paid Vipir the Fleet for five rounds of Pickpocket training
• Slept, then got up the next morning to shop and quest
• Checked in with Viriya and gave her her juvenile mudcrab
• Got her bounty to take a glassfish to Zaria in Falkreath
• Fished the three fishing spots I could get to in Riften without having Honeyside, and did indeed get a glassfish though I’ll need another one
• Sold fishing junk to Bersi
• Got Hafjorg’s quest to get the ore sample from Shor’s Stone’s smith Filnjar
• Got Ingun’s quest for her ingredients
• Gave Marise ice wraith teeth since I already had five of them
• Came out through the gate to scope out the Goldenglow Estate situation
• Blood Dragon showed up but it was a flyby
• Frostbite Spider also showed up and was quickly slain by Khajiit
• Talked to Ahkari and bought a bunch of ingredients from her
• Got Kharjo’s quest for his moon amulet, pointing at Redoran’s Retreat this time
• Scouted out Goldenglow Estate; kinda neat to be able to swim up to the place entirely underwater!
• Boinged back to Lakeview for the time being
• Briefly saw red dots on my HUD, but did not find any hostiles around Lakeview, so wasn’t sure what was up with that
• Went into the house and saved until next time

Commentary

The dragon fight I got into going out to run Wolfskull Cave was unexpectedly lively! A nearby Orc also got in on the battle, to begin with. I’m not sure if she was a “What’s a milk drinker like you doing out here?” type of Orc, or a mercenary. Probably the former? But I didn’t talk to her so I don’t know.

And while we were fighting the dragon, a cave bear ran up and also started attacking both the dragon and us.

This did not go well for the cave bear.

What also didn’t go well: the first fight when running Wolfskull Cave. I got killed twice at the first notable spot where you can find opponents, the little camp just before getting into Wolfskull Ruins. Lydia and I got glommed by three different necromancers, and I think they were two draugr.

I do not remember this hard of a fight at this point of the cave before. But then, my recent playthroughs have generally involved a larger Team Dragonborn, and I’ve also wound up running Wolfskull Cave later in those playthroughs, so there’s that.

What finally saved my bacon: remembering that as an Argonian, I can do Histskin once per day. That got me through that fight, and also marked the first time I actually used the Histskin power. I really, really need to remember that this is available to me in this playthrough. It will probably save my bacon again.

Meanwhile, it occurs to me that with the number of times I’ve seen Ahkari’s Khajiit caravan killing things right in front of the Riften gates, I think it’s extra special unfair that Riften doesn’t let them come inside the city to do business. At the very least, they should pay the Khajiit some bounties for keeping the road up into the city free of frostbite spiders, bears, and occasional dragons!

I feel like Sheogorath’s crack about death threats written on the back of an Argonian concubine being his favorite type of message does not go over so well when you’re playing an Argonian. 😀 Particularly in a playthrough in German, where the Sheogorath you talk to does have a really nice little extra oomph to his underlying menace! (See below in Language Commentary.)

Lastly, while I did go over to scope out the Goldenglow Estate situation, I decided not to run it quite yet. I had three invisibility potions in my inventory, but as of this writing do not yet have the Throw Voice Shout. And I want to fix that problem before I start in on the main Thieves Guild stuff properly.

In a pinch I can make myself invisible with the Bow of Shadows. But I’d also at least like a couple more invisibility potions, preferably longer duration ones, because the bow only keeps me invisible for 30 seconds.

I do wonder though if I was lingering near Goldenglow just long enough for some of the mercenaries to spot me. Just as I fast traveled back to Lakeview, I saw some red dots showing up in my HUD. But there weren’t any hostiles around the house, so I couldn’t see what caused the dots. I wonder if the game lagged a bit and I was seeing dots that were left over from being near Goldenglow? Don’t know!

Language commentary

Interesting terms observed:

• Angelines Aromalädchen: Angeline’s Aromatics (lit. “Angeline’s little aroma shop”)
• Die Bardenakademie: The Bards College
• Tiefensturzhöhle: Steepfall Burrow (lit. “deep fall cave”)
• Nord-Wertarbeit: Nord craftsmanship (lit. “Nord workmanship”)
• Rubindrachenklaue: Ruby Dragon Claw
• Draugrgeißel: Draugr Scourge
• Rolle des Schutzzirkels: Scroll of Guardian Circle (lit. “scroll of protection circle”)
• Aschehaufen: Pile of Ash
• König Olaf Ein-Auge: King Olaf One-Eye
• Die Bardenkunst: Bardic art (used in Viarmo’s line where he snarks about how bardic verse has improved a lot since the time of King Olaf One-Eye)
• Unterdrücker: Oppressor (used in the verse where Olaf is called a subjugator)
• Todbringender Dämon und Drachentöter-König: Deadly Demon and Dragon Slayer King (used in the part of the verse that reads “death-dealing demon and dragon-killing king” in English)
• Jahrhundertschwindel: The German translation of “con for the ages” in the verse (lit. “century swindle”)
• Blauer Palast: Blue Palace
• Fest der Verbrennung von König Olaf: The Burning of King Olaf Festival
• Lieder-Edda: Poetic Edda
• Grabmal des Barden: Bard’s Tomb
• Winterfeste: Winterhold
• Wolfsschädelhöhle: Wolfskull Cave
• Hauptmann Aldis: Captain Aldis
• Hohepriester: High Priest
• Erpresserbrief: Ransom Note
• Wolfsschädelruinen: Wolfskull Ruins
• Mondsteinerzader: Moonstone Ore Vein
• Wolfskönigin: Wolf Queen
• Draugrwicht: Draugr Wight
• Die Flüchtlinge: The Refugees (book title)
• Jadediadem Mit Saphir: Jade and Sapphire Circlet (lit. “jade diadem with sapphire”)
• Kampftrommler: Battle Drummer
• Das Wrack der Salzwasserhammer: The Wreck of the Brinehammer (lit. “the wreck of the salt water hammer”)
• Eine wiederaufstandene Potema: A resurrected Potema
• Außer vielleicht diesem Martin-Burschen: Except for that Martin fellow (Sheogorath’s description of the best Septim who ever ruled)
• Todesdrohung: Death threat
• Sheogorath, den daedrischen Prinzen des Wahnsinns: Sheogorath, the Daedric Prince of Madness
• Hackebeil: Cleaver
• Inge Sechs-Finger: Inge Six Fingers
• Chöre: Courses (as in, strings on an instrument, not classes)
• Ursprüngliche, achtchörige Laute: Original eight course lute
• Falk Feuerbart: Falk Firebeard
• Bienenstockhülle: Beehive Husk
• Elfenkriegsaxt der Verbannung: Elven War Axe of Banishing
• Shors Stein: Shor’s Stone
• Todesglockenblumen: Deathbell (plural)
• Tollkirschen: Nightshade (plural)
• Nirnwurze: Nirnroot (plural)
• Einprägsam: Memorable (used in Bersi’s line about the name of the Prawned Prawn being catchy)
• Mondamulett: Moon Amulet
• Goblin-Totemstab: Goblin Totem Staff

Since I heard Lisette singing “The Age of Aggression” in the Winking Skeever, that gave me an opportunity to hear that song in full in German. The translation did a pretty good job, I think.

It did actually rhyme! Though the line containing Sovngarde had a few too many syllables in it to scan correctly, so the scansion and rhythm wasn’t quite a hundred percent on. But mostly it sounded good!

Noting for the record that Gisli does not sound nearly pissed off enough in German. She sounds practically cordial. Which is a shame, since hatred of her brother seems to be a huge driving force of that character, and mostly, that only comes out in the random lines she throws off when you walk by her in Solitude. I feel like a more restrained performance out of her German voice actor loses that aspect of her. I’d be curious to know if she parses as cranky to a native German speaker, though.

By contrast, German Sheogorath did very well! He had the correct sort of zany tone and did a good imitation of the original English performance, in terms of speech rhythms and such. He did have a higher timbre voice than Sheo in English, but it still worked for me.

And I’ll call out one aspect of Sheo’s performance that I actually liked better in the German performance than I did in the English one. Specifically, the part where Sheo delivers this line:

“Do you – tiny, puny, expendable little mortal – actually think you can convince me to leave?”

The German voice actor pulled a nice tonal change here, where all at once there was a much more distinct undertone of menace to Sheo’s voice. It was brief, but definitely there to my ear, before he returned to the more zany/friendly tone Sheo has for most of this plot. And I really liked that. It fits in well with how the lore describes Uncle Sheo as being utterly unpredictable, and just as likely to fuck you up as he is to help you. So that little flare of I will absolutely end you if my whim swings that way was great. Chef’s kiss, German voice actor. <3

I should take a moment here to also note my amusement that Google Translate does in fact understand how to translate “daedrischen” to “Daedric”. LOL.

And speaking of running the Wabbajack quest in German, the word Wabbajack was pronounced with German consonant pronunciation. So it came out sounding like “vabbayack”, which was kind of neat too. 😀

I have successfully caught one instance of a German voice line that does not match the equivalent subtitle. When you ask a merchant what they have for sale, one of the lines you can get in reply is “Oh, a bit of this, a bit of that.”

In German, the voice line I hear is:

“Oh, etwas hiervon, etwas davon…”

But in the subtitle, what I see is:

“Oh, ein bisschen hiervon, ein bisschen davon…”

Literally speaking, “etwas” means “something” and “ein bisschen” means “a little”. But from what I’m seeing looking this up, particularly on Reverso’s page for translating the word “bit” to German, both of these translations seem idiomatically correct. I already knew that voice lines and subtitles won’t always necessarily agree, but now I’m very curious as to what would cause any random German speaker to favor one of these versions over the other. Like, is it a geographical/regional dialect thing? Like how a soft drink can be a “coke” in the southern U.S. no matter what actual brand of soft drink it is?

And oh yes: I took a bunch of screenshots of Bersi Honey-Hand’s story of how he named his shop in Riften, just because I was puzzled about why it had a word for chanterelle in it, rather than a word for prawn. Here’s the transcription off the screenshots I took:

“In meiner Jugend war ich Fischer… Ich hatte ein wunderschönes Boot, die “Kräftige Krabbe”. Aber man wird ja leider nicht jünger. Ich hab den Kahn schließlich verkauft und den Fischladen hier eröffnet. War früher ein Pfandhaus. Der Name gefiel mir irgendwie, da hab ich ihn beibehalten. Und so das Gold für ein neues Schild gespart. Es wäre klüger gewesen, wenn ich das Boot behalten hätte. Es war ein großer Fehler, in diese Stadt zu ziehen.”

From what I see throwing this through Google Translate, this is more or less a translation of the story he tells the player in the English game. So no reworking of this story in German to make it make sense to account for the rename. Which means I got nothing re: why the shop’s name was changed, other than they wanted something to flow better with “Verpfändeter Pfifferling”, as I was suspecting before.

Next time

I’ve played one session already since this post, and that’s going to feature hitting Halldir’s Cairn for Rjorn’s drum, and then finishing up the Cursed Tribe plot.

After that, I’ll probably take another crack at getting to the flute in Hob’s Fall Cave, and the lute in Stony Creek Cave, and get back to Solitude for purposes of getting those skill bumps. And I should probably go see what Falk Firebeard wants!

Screenshots

Editing to add

• 11/25/2023: Restored missing gallery.