In Which Finds-The-Way Finds a Drum and a Very Big Hammer

Single-session post for once, for Finds-The-Way’s run! Main action is running Halldir’s Cairn and the rest of the Cursed Tribe plot, both of which I’ve done before, but I got a good amount of language geekery out of this. So German language geekery is most of this post.

Play by play

Play date: 9/5/2023
Session number in this run: 16
Started off at Lakeview and did a little inventory managing
Fought three skeevers in the cellar, then did some smithing
Grabbed ingredients out of the barrel
Headed over to Falkreath and checked in with Zaria about the glassfish; gave that to her
Got her quest about the skooma and the guard and ran that; got the Ring of Surroundings
Also got the quest hook for taking out the Elven bandit fugitive and getting his armor
Went over to the graveyard and harvested the rest of the nightshade I need to bring to Ingun
Mounted up and rode over to Halldir’s Cairn
On the way fought a couple of goblins right on the road
Reached and ran Halldir’s Cairn
Leveled up to 25, but killed once by Halldir duplicates, which cost me that level up when I was thrown back
Got Lydia into the room before the gate came down on the second attempt, and this time we were victorious
Looted the place, got the drum
Got down the trap door chute without killing myself this time, go me 😉
Got out again and returned to Lakeview
Then realized it was a good time of day to just proceed to Whiterun and sell stuff
From Whiterun, rode out with rough plan of heading up to Hob’s Fall Cave to get Pantea’s flute
Marked Whitewatch Tower for the map
Guards had already killed three bandits by the time I showed up, so I looted the bandits
Found Cicero and his cart, so ran that plot and convinced Loreius to help him
Didn’t get very far past that, though, I think it was a frost troll that killed me 😛
Thrown back to quicksave point near the Whiterun stables
New plan! Decided to go to Largashbur instead to finish off the Cursed Tribe plot
When I showed up, there was another giant attacking the place; Orcs were fighting it, and when Lyds and I got in on the fight, we took it down pretty quickly
Didn’t see any new casualties, but did see some other dots on the HUD that suggested probably another round of the weirdly hostile goats I’ve seen at this point of the game before
Lyds and Kara both ran off in pursuit of those dots, and my flame atronach took one down near the gate, which did in fact turn out to be a goat
Meanwhile I talked to Atub to advance the plot and gave her the troll fat and daedra heart
Went in with her to talk to Yamarz and do the initial ritual to speak to Malacath
Malacath bitched at Yamarz like he does
Yamarz pulled me in to accompany him off to kill the giant
Saddled back up and started following him to Riften
Killed a couple of frostbite spiders en route
When he went through the Riften gate, I fast traveled to the stables to park the horse, then got off and hoofed it the rest of the way
Ran into three, count ‘em, three bears
Hit them all with the Kyne’s Peace Shout because that was way too many bears to fight at once; they backed off, so I kept running
Madwoman came up to babble at me about the Wabbajack, but I’d left it at Lakeview so couldn’t Wabbajack her; sorry, old mad lady
Lyds caught up with me and we headed into Fallowstone with Yamarz
Killed once when Yamarz pissed off the giant we were passing, something else (a troll, I think) snuck up on me and took me out while that fight was going on
Second time through Yamarz’s AI got a little wonky and I didn’t see where he buggered off to, but we made it out into Giant’s Grove
Told him fuck no I’m not killing that giant for you, I distinctly heard Malacath tell you to do that
So he went to do that and of course got killed
Giant came after me and Lyds and got in a critical hit on me, flung me skyward, WHEEEEEEE *splat*
Thrown back to coming into Giant’s Grove and told Yamarz again that I wasn’t killing the giant for him
This time through I also realized why the fuck am I trying to shoot this giant with iron arrows
Switched up to bone arrows and that went much better
Cue Malacath telling me to take the giant’s hammer back to the tribe
Looted the mammoth cheese and the chest before I left
Made my way back out of the cave and looted a couple of dead bandits on the way out
Snuck past giants inside the cave so as to not piss them off
Got back outside and fast traveled back to Largashbur
Reported back to Atub and Malacath announced the new guy who’d be chief
Troll showed up just outside the gates as that conversation started, so every Orc in sight ran over to fight with it; Malacath’s lines did not stop while this happened
Did the thing with the hammer and now I have Volendrung
Returned to Lakeview
Had enough iron ore to make locks and hinges for the door into the storage wing, and finished building it out
Which triggered an achievement for building all three wings of a house, awesome
Forget exactly when this happened, I think while running Cursed Tribe, but did regain my level 25 level up; took Custom Fit perk in Light Armor and Health bump
Did not lose the achievement even when I was killed and thrown back to level 24, so that’s good to know
Saved there until next time

Commentary

I learned something in this session: the goblins that attack you if you’re on the road right near Halldir’s Cairn, an attack I’d experienced before in Harrow’s run, is not part of Beyond Skyrim: Bruma. It’s an encounter brought in by the Goblins creation, the same one that puts a goblin hunting party near Largashbur, and of course also gives you Gogh and the Spear of Bitter Mercy.

Good to know!

Not too much different running Halldir’s Cairn this time, with one exception. I.e., being able to treasure dive into water as an Argonian. I naturally had to try the pool with the waterfall just to see if there was anything interesting in there. Not much, but I did find a coin purse, I think!

Learned an important strategy to keep in mind when I’m a lower-level character still: Kyne’s Peace is a splendid Shout to use when I get attacked by a ridiculous number of bears. Three is definitely a ridiculous number of bears. And hitting three bears with that Shout worked splendidly. I was able to get them to back off so I could proceed to Fallowstone Cave unhindered.

It’s been a while since I got smacked so hard by a giant that I got flung into the sky. Heh. This is what I get for taking on a giant at level 25 with nothing but my housecarl for backup.

That troll showing up during Malacath’s final orders to the tribe was hysterical. Their Daedric god is getting all up in their faces about getting their shit together, explicitly while they’re all running off and working together to take out a troll. I’m not sure whether Malacath should give them all points for that, yell at them for ignoring them, snark about it taking every single one of them to fight one troll, or all of the above. 😀

Achievements unlocked

Expert: For reaching level 25
Architect: For building three wings of a house

Current achievements count: 16.

Language commentary

Interesting terms observed:

Gruftiges Gebräu: Grave Concoctions
Halldirs Grab: Halldir’s Cairn (lit. “Halldir’s Grave”)
Ring der Umgebung: Ring of Surroundings
Danica Reine-Quelle: Danica Pure-Spring
Hof der Kampf-Geborenen: Battle-Born Farm
Tundragut: Tundra Homestead
Wachturm von Weißlauf: Whitewatch Tower (lit. “Watchtower of Whiterun”)
Regungslos: Unmoving, motionless (used when Cicero laments being stuck on the road)
Glänzenden, schimmernden Münze: Gleamy, shiny coin (lit. “shiny, shimmering coin”)
Loreiushof: Loreius Farm
Hofnarr: Jester
Unfreundlichkeit: Unkindness
Häuptling: Chief
Armseliger Schwächling: Pathetic weakling
Peinlichkeit: Embarrassment
Fahlsteinhöhle: Fallowstone Cave (lit. “pale stone cave”)
Verrückte: Lunatic (i.e., the madwoman who comes at you babbling about the Wabbajack)
Riesenhain: Giant’s Grove

I raised an eyebrow at “gut” in the translation of Tundra Homestead, since I’m used to the word “gut” being German for “good”. But it can apparently also be a noun meaning “property” or “estate”, which makes it a pretty decent translation. (Source)

I’m a little surprised to see that the translation of Cicero’s gushing about “gleamy, shiny coin” uses a singular noun, Münze? I’m also surprised to see that it’s Münze and not Munze. What German vocabulary I already had typically used umlauts on plural forms of nouns. What this tells me is: toss that expectation out! It’s clearly not accurate.

Still, though, the singular noun could still work here if German has the connotation here that English does, i.e., that “coin” is being used as a collective noun here and not in reference to a single coin. My usual sources suggest that this might be the case. (Source) (Source)

Huh. I’d previously understood “fallow” to mean as in “a non-productive field”. But the translation here comes back to English as “pale”, and if I look up the word “fallow”, I see that there’s a connotation for that even in English. But the part that gives me pause here is that the cave in question is not pale in color. Once you get inside, the place is pretty dark-colored all over. Lots of browns and shadows everywhere.

Of course, we’re talking about a location in the Rift here, and I could totally buy the locals being sarcastic in their naming choices if it’s meant to be a statement about what the cave looks like. But I could also buy them naming it Fallowstone just because it’s not good farming territory either. Or both!

I’m going to quote all of this line of Malacath’s here when he tells you to take the giant’s hammer back to Largashbur:

“Now, take Shagrol’s hammer back to Largashbur, and we’ll see about whipping the rest of them into shape.”

In German, his line is:

“Bringt nun Shagrols Hammer zurück nach Largashbur, und wir werden sehen, ob wir auch dem Rest von ihnen die Leviten lesen können.”

The bit of this that interests me is “die Leviten lesen”. “Leviten” by itself can mean Levites, as in, one of the groups in the Bible. But pretty damn sure that’s not what they mean here. “Die Leviten lesen” as a phrase is apparently an equivalent of saying “read the riot act” or “haul over the coals” in English. So that seems like a good idiomatic translation. (Source)

Voice acting commentary

The ghosts in Halldir’s Cairn had a bit of a different style to their vocal delivery in German. In English, it’s very hollow and echo-y. In German, there’s still a bit of an echo but the ghost lines sounded more whispery to me. So that was an intriguing distinction to note.

My encounter with Cicero got retconned because I got killed shortly thereafter. But since I did play through that encounter in this session, I’ll note anyway that Cicero’s German voice actor did a splendid job. Very close match to his performance in English. And I also just liked the rhythm of his word choices in German when he enthused about giving you shiny, clinky coins for helping him out. Heh.

The Orcs in Largashbur all sounded good, as did Malacath.

Next time

I want to take another crack at going to get the flute for the Bards College. And Finds still needs the Throw Voice Shout before I go tackle Goldenglow Estates! So I’m going to try both of these in her next session. Time permitting, I’ll swing around after that to pick up the lute and then return all the instruments to the Bards College.

Screenshots

No screenshots this time.