In Which Kendeshel Joins the Imperial Legion and the Companions

I thought I was done with commentary on Project AHO, but not quite. Got a couple more minor spoilery comments about the AHO in this post, pertaining to rewards given in that mod and how they apply to my playthrough moving forward, as well as Kendeshel’s mindset after her experiences with that plot.

Also, spoilery commentary in this post about Legacy of the Dragonborn as well, as this features the Shadows of One’s Past quest for that mod.

Aside from that, action in this post that isn’t mod-specific includes getting the Daedric plate armor, cleaning out the first Saints bandits camp for the Saints and Seducers quest, joining the Imperial Legion, joining the Companions, running Dead Men’s Respite, doing the civil war champions fight, and running Korvanjund to get the Jagged Crown.

Play by play

• Play dates: 9/28, 10/2/2023
• Session numbers in this run: 14-15

Thursday the 28th

• Level up review: got up to level 32 in the last couple of sessions
• Perks taken: 
  • Sneak: first Stealth perk, Muffled Movement, Light Foot
  • Conjuration: Apprentice Conjuration
• Picked up again at Lakeview
• During the course of this session, also leveled up to 33 and took first Magic Resistance perk in Alteration
• First action: boinged to Deep Folk Crossing and did further poking around in the AHO
• Used the face changing machine just so I could give Kendeshel one of the standard Skyrim hairdos
• Grabbed a bunch of things out of the various storage containers for use
• Also discovered that the AHO does, in fact, have a control panel inside it to let it go to different locations
• Made the thing boing to the Tower of Mzark, and yep there sure is a big ol’ launch pad there for the AHO
• Boinged down to Whiterun from there to sell things and check on Lucia and Meeko
• From there, decided to hit Knifepoint Ridge and run the plot to get the Daedric plate armor
• That went pretty well, especially given that I am now capable of summoning three flame atronachs at once
• Cleared the place, got the enchanted set of Daedric plate off the bounty hunter, and got a full unenchanted set off the bandit chief in the mine as well
• Tried to go back to the museum to drop off stuff 
• Only to discover SURPRISE! MORE PLOT! The museum had been ROBBED! :O
• Found that every relic in the place had been stolen, and most of the guards killed
• Found Avram tied up in the main hall and questioned him to find out exactly what the FUCK happened
• He fessed up to having once been a bandit in Hammerfell, and that some of his old comrades had raided the museum
• So I went RIGHT THEN my dude, you are COMING WITH ME and we are getting those relics back
• Got him, Lydia, and Snippy on board the Dev Aveza, and took it to Whiterun since the first place we needed to investigate was near the Ritual Stone
• Hoofed it over towards the target location, Windcaller Pass–which took two tries, actually
• First time through, at the spawn point near White River Watch, something either Lydia or Avram did got them pissed off at each other and fighting
• CHILDREN! CHILDREN! DON’T MAKE ME TURN THIS HORSE AROUND!
• Rolled back to coming out of Whiterun, and did take two
• This time we got Balbus at the same spawn point
• Hi Balbus! Points for you acknowledging the Gourmet might actually be a woman! It is not however me, so good luck on finding your idol, I got bandits to go kill, ciao
• Got killed once but it was otherwise a pretty short fight, just had to remember to keep the atronachs coming; tried frost atronachs this time but didn’t have enough of a magicka pool to really make that work yet
• Took out a bunch of Alik’r warriors, several of whom were wearing “Executioner’s Armor” in addition to random bits of Alik’r gear and clothing
• Got round one of recovered relics
• Found a note mentioning a “Jelal” and a shipment of loot aiming for Hammerfell, so next objective was to catch up with that caravan and take it out
• This was not far from Pinewatch and in fact right near the bandit tower there, so I boinged straight to Pinewatch on Heidrun to get over there
• Took out that bunch of bandits, and got second round of recovered loot
• Marked Peak’s Shade Tower for the map; no spriggan in there, which was weird
• Reminded myself I had Detect Dead after having made all those spells in Bkhalzarf, so used that to make sure I didn’t miss anybody to loot
• Then we had to go to Engelmann’s Rest for the confrontation with Jelal, which turned out to be right near Southfringe Sanctum
• Mostly rode over there but wound up moving faster than either Snippy or Avram, and had to pause repeatedly for them to catch up
• Started running Engelmann’s Rest, which was a very large dungeon
• Just as we entered, Avram stopped me and asked if I’d give him a chance to try to talk Jelal down, and I was all “this guy is totally Avram’s father or brother, isn’t he?”
• Lots of hostiles in the dungeon, and a named hagraven, Syndra, partway through
• Got a pair of ebony gauntlets called Hands of the Atronach and OOH TASTY
• Confirmed that yes indeed, Jelal was Avram’s brother, and they had inevitable brother drama conversation when we found him
• Avram told him to fuck off and we had the final battle
• That battle was large, and would have gone worse if I hadn’t thrown Time Break and the backup squad of flame atronachs
• Recovered the rest of the stolen relics
• Avram said he’d stay behind and bury his brother and meet me back at the museum in a few days
• I went back out to doublecheck if I’d missed any loot, and then made it out to Heidrun
• Saddled up and boinged right back to Whiterun to pick up the airship
• Noted while on the deck that I could in fact see the AHO at Mzark where I left it, way off in the distance, cooooooool
• Spent some time exploring the airship as well and finding its various crafting stations and the bed and things
• Also found the smuggler’s hatch, neat
• Returned to the museum to check in, and determined Auryen was a) all right and b) overjoyed to hear I’d recovered all our relics; he promised to have everything cleaned up in a few days
• I went out to do other things while waiting
• Realized that since I’d left the horse at Whiterun and had taken the airship there, the horse might have gotten misplaced?
• Returned to Whiterun but found that the horse was not in fact there
• So tried out the Conjure Jumper spell from Project AHO
• Rode the jumper over to the Saints bandit camp, since I realized that at level 33 I could totally take those guys, especially with flame atronachs
• EAT FLAMING DEATH BANDITS
• Took all their stuff, got the usual Saints loot from them, and freed the elytra
• Yet again, had to do the thing with the console to unstick the quest marker on the dead bandit leader; I repro this every time, not sure what the fuck is happening, but at least fixing it in the console works 😛
• Returned to Solitude and found that Avram had returned to the museum
• Had final conversation with him letting him off the hook for any responsibility about his brother being a thieving dick; Auryen was on board with this, and in fact encouraged me in that direction <3
• Avram was overjoyed, promised to double his efforts to keep the museum safe, and gave me his father’s sword
• Which I then displayed in the Safehouse over the fireplace as per the wiki <3
• Did a bunch of inventory cleanup, found I still had a BUNCH of stolen things, and wound up putting them all in the smuggler’s hatch on board the airship
• Sold a bunch of things, then went out to try to find my horse
• Boinged to Meeko’s Shack to see if I could hoof it over from there
• This would have worked except for the part where a dragon showed up
• Took it out and then returned to Solitude, because I got the alert that Auryen had finished cleaning up the museum
• Came back to deal with all the pending items that needed to go on display; that got me up to 427 items
• Including the weapon Light of Day which Auryen gave me as another display count reward
• Then went back out again, and this time actually found Heidrun
• Boinged back to Katla’s Farm and used Convenient Horses’ functionality to specifically tell her ‘tphis is your home’
• Boinged again back to the museum and saved at the Safehouse until next time

Monday the 2nd

• Picked up at the Safehouse
• During course of previous session, made it to level 34
• Did some drum practice to nudge me up to 5
• Then headed over to the Bards College to check in with Malukah
• Went through the entire rest of her tests just because I wanted to run Dead Men’s Respite, but I had trouble finding Viarmo
• So went over instead to sign up with the Imperial Legion
• Tullius handed me off to Legate Rikke, who gave me the task to go clear Fort Hraggstad
• Headed out with Lydia to do that
• Clearing the fort was not difficult with the ability to call up three atronachs at once, LOL
• Took out a crapton of bandits, then did a circuit of searching for the place for any interesting loot
• Found the Cloak of the Northern Paladin lying around by one of the beds, so claimed that
• Got thoroughly overloaded with loot of course, but horse whistled and mounted up to fast travel back to Solitude
• Got in around 4am game time but went straight to Legate Rikke anyway to report in
• She handed me off to Tullius to swear me in, then i got the assignment to meet up with her at Korvanjund
• On the way out I also volunteered with the other legate to be the Imperial champion at the champion fight with the Stormcloaks
• Got access to the chest with the Imperial Dragon armor in it, and claimed that gear
• Sold a bunch of the loot I got
• Got medium tier armor from Beirand now that Kendeshel is officially on Team Empire
• Finally found Viarmo and got the pointer to go get the verse from Dead Men’s Respite
• Headed out with Lyds and Snips and elytra; traveled overland since I didn’t have Dead Men’s Respite on the map yet
• Cut past Frost River to get over there rather than going around Robber’s Gorge
• Fought a random cranky Imperial on the way
• Set up a tent to camp at Dead Men’s Respite’s door when I got there
• Found a dig site outside, and worked that site to get its fragments
• Had Snippy and the elytra stay by the tent, I didn’t want to have to take either of them through the swinging blades trap in there
• Started running the place, and the swinging blades trap was in fact not a problem; took out all draugr before any of them could trigger it, and deactivated it so Lyds and I could cross the bridge safely
• Three atronachs at once made the boss chamber fight pretty lively, too XD
• King Olaf dropped an ebony war axe this time–and the Ice Blade of the Monarch
• Got the next word for Whirlwind Sprint off the Word Wall there, and satisfied the Word of Power quest from Arngeir
• Got boss loot and got out
• Slept in my tent, then mounted up and boinged to Whiterun (note: forgot to get Snips and elytra out of wait mode as I did this)
• Sold a bunch of things, and used the stash spell to stash a bunch of things
• Dropped a few items into the museum shipment box by Breezehome to send them back to Solitude
• Saw Lucia and she gave me some scathecraw <3
• Went up to talk to the Companions and sign on with them
• Saw the opening fight in the main hall of Jorrvaskr, and did initial conversation with Vilkas and Kodlak
• Kodiak sent me off with Vilkas for him to test me
• Remembered to park Lydia just inside the door so she wouldn’t flip out and attack Vilkas while we were sparring!
• Got Vilkas’ approval, and he sent me up to get his sword sharpened by Eorlund Gray-Mane
• Eorlund sent me off with the shield to give to Aela
• Talked to Aela and Skjor, and Aela pointed me at Farkas to see where I could sleep in Jorrvaskr
• Farkas also gave me a Hired Muscle quest, which this time turned out to target Skulvar Sable-Hilt at the stables
• Stopped on the way out to have a word with Skulvar, and by word I mean brawl; he grumpily agreed to go make amends for whatever he was being stupid about
• Then geared up to try to go deal with the battleground, which took three tries!
• Take one:
  • Got cultists on the way and took them out
  • Then proceeded to get swarmed by the Stormcloaks in the champion fight, down in seconds, oops
  • Thrown back to coming out of the stables
• Take two: no cultists, but still got one-shotted when the fight started
• Take three: got a Khajiit mage in partial Tribunal gear this time; took him out
• Then tried the battle again, and this time remembered, duh, I had the Time Break spell
• So I used that and that got me through the battle just fine–without any Imperial casualties, fuck yeah
• Took out the champion and all five of the Stormcloaks backing her up
• From there, proceeded over to Korvanjund; met up with Rikke and her squadron there (HI HADVAR)
• Ran the place, and it took me a couple tries to remember where to find the lever and also find the path over the stormcloak ambush as we made our way through
• Got the ebony claw and the Jagged Crown, and the word for Slow Time off that Word Wall, fuck yeah
• Rikke sent me back to Solitude to check in with the crown
• Handed that off to Tullius and he gave me the order to take the message to Balgruuf in Whiterun
• But before heading out to do that, sold a crapton of loot
• Had to use the teleport spell to get the elytra back to me, and used Snippy’s control thingamabob to call him back
• While doing that, triggered the “hey can you make me invisible” encounter with Kayd, who saw me casting the teleport spell, LOL
• Sure kid, you are TOTALLY invisible
• Checked back in at the museum
• Got courier with a commendation for beating the Stormcloak champion
• Dropped off a lot of items to put on display, including a few things I just straight up bought from various merchants so that I could display them
• This got me up to nearly 500 displays
• Auryen found me and gave me the Trident of the Cairn as the reward for crossing the 450 mark
• Saved there until next time
• Leveled up to 35 during this session; took Magicka bump and Apprentice perk in Illusion

A bit more commentary on Project AHO

I was wrong, I still do have a bit more to say about this mod’s content, since it does have ramifications for this playthrough going forward.

One of the first things I did in this pair of sessions was to go to the AHO and play around with the face changing machine. I wanted to do this because I’d discovered that non-standard hairdos make me turn bald if I put on a helmet or a hat, and I find this irritating. (And while I’m sure this is fixable with judicious patching, I do not yet know enough about what to patch to do it effectively. So for now the solution to this problem is ‘change hairdos’.)

I can headcanon this as Kendeshel partly interested just in how the machinery works (because this whole sphere IS now under her control so of COURSE she’s going to fuck around with it), and partly as a bit of a trauma response, I guess. Because getting kidnapped and stolen into slavery is fucking traumatic, even if you are the Dragonborn!

Feeling like Kendeshel’s very much in a mode right now of wanting to definitely reaffirm her control over herself and her life, and the ability to change her appearance on demand would be a way of her doing that.

That said… not sure I’ll want to spend much time inside the AHO, practically speaking. It’s not nearly as useful for traversing Skyrim as the Dev Aveza is, since it’s got a limited number of places I can actually put it. And most of those places are not within reasonable range of a city.

Also, while visiting the AHO, and as I mentioned in this earlier post, I discovered that it did now have a functioning interior control panel to let it go to the small number of places it could reach. I did not see this working during the main AHO plot, so presumably that unlocked when the plot was done?

This makes no goddamn sense to me narrative wise, as I wrote before. But for this playthrough’s purposes, I’ll assume that for whatever reason (and I did like Dara’s idea about engaging Auryen for assistance in the research), Kendeshel managed to activate that control panel when somehow Yen-Ylu and Shanath never figured it out. Shanath is dead and Yen-Ylu is now out of the game, so telling either of them is not an option. And she is certainly not going to be inclined to tell anybody else in Sadrith Kegran about this.

The ability to summon three atronachs at once is, as I rather expected it to be, both very useful and kind of ridiculously OP. It is rather satisfying to throw a trio of flame atronachs in to cut a swath through a bandit lair. But it does rather take some challenge out of it!

I am totes going to take advantage of this since I have it as an option in this playthrough, though. But at least limiting it to atronachs helps a bit. By the time I unlock the Twin Souls perk, by which time I’ll be more inclined to call dremora lords anyway, I’ll still have to do the standard two conjurations rather than six. But six storm atronachs should help a lot against higher tier dragons, that’s for sure.

Last but not least, having made all those spells at the typewriter thingamabob in Bkzalharf will definitely save me a bunch of gold, because I won’t have to buy those spells from the College of Winterhold. But it’ll still be a while before I’ll be able to cast a bunch of them, like Invisibility and Conjure Dremora Lord. I gotta work on that.

And for purposes of the Legacy of the Dragonborn plot I played on the 28th, having Detect Dead sure did come in handy!

Shadows of One’s Past quest

This quest for Legacy of the Dragonborn kicked in once I returned to the museum on the 9/28 session, and this was great fun. <3

Like the haunting plot before it, this one kicked in very organically, and I love how it continued the overall idea of things happening at the museum even when I’m not there. Plus, it was splendid realization of the foreshadowing dropped about Avram when he originally showed up as the head of the museum guards, since I’d had conversation with Auryen about whether he was trustworthy!

Since there had been foreshadowing, it was not the slightest bit surprising that Avram turned out to have a criminal past. But I feel like this made Kendeshel all the more inclined to be sympathetic to him–because seriously, if her life had gone just a little differently, it might have been her in a Redguard bandit gang.

That said, her sympathy went only so far. It very much did piss her off that his former bandit compatriots came in and stole all the relics, most of which she had gone to a GREAT DEAL OF TROUBLE to find! Plus, see above commentary re: her being very much in a mode of reasserting her control over her life, in the aftermath of Sadrith Kegran. This includes all of the museum’s displays. Those are hers, goddammit!

Well okay fine, hers and Auryen’s. BUT THE POINT STANDS. ;D

So she laid it out for Avram: he was coming out with her and they were going to get all of those relics back.

And this was an excellent time to try out the Dev Aveza for reals, too! I flew it for the first time with this plot, and very much liked docking it just over Whiterun. It made for some nifty views, too! (Including being able to see the AHO where I’d parked it!)

I assume that it was purely for convenience’s sake that I had to only get three items to represent the recovered relics–because seriously, moving 400+ things back and forth would have been way more difficult, not to mention hard for me to carry! I am of course chronically overloaded in any of my playthroughs, that is known. But carrying an entire museum’s worth of relics is a bit much even for me. Let us assume for narrative’s sake that in between pursuing the relic-thieving bandit bastards, Kendeshel, Lydia, and Avram hurried back to the Dev Aveza and dropped off a bunch of stuff in the cargo hold before heading back out again.

There was no spriggan in Peak’s Shade Tower when I got there, which confused me. It was not clear whether Legacy explicitly disabled that spriggan, or whether it had just been killed by the bandits before I got there? I didn’t see a corpse for it, anyway, when I looked.

Once I got to Engelmann’s Rest and Avram stopped me to ask for the chance to talk Jelal down, I went “This dude is totally your father or your brother, isn’t he?” And it was gratifying to be right, since Jelal turned out to be Avram’s brother. Nice little bit of family drama there as the two of them carped at one another at the end, just before we all cut loose for the final melee.

Also notable in Engelmann’s Rest: a named hagraven, Syndra. I did not see any clues about an actual story on Syndra, but it wasn’t like there was much time to look! Because she started flinging fire as soon as she saw us–and Kendeshel was not in a mood for negotiations. Because seriously, you raven-feathered bitch, do you realize how much work it was getting all of those relics?

And I found a pair of ebony gauntlets called the Hands of the Atronach. Which had a tasty, tasty enchantment on them bolstering elemental resistances, and which I would now totally be wearing if I were a heavy armor player at all. I may need to make a replica of them for display though, just so that I can have Lydia or some other housecarl wear these. Because 20% bump to Fire, Frost, and Shock Resistance, fuck yeah!

Speaking of that final melee, gotta admit that having the Time Break spell from Project AHO as well as the ability to call in multiple atronachs saved my ass here. The Time Break spell in particular made it actually possible for me to keep up with how many Alik’r hostiles swarmed the room once the fighting was on. And I even managed to down a few of them myself, as opposed to leaving them all to the atronachs, Avram, and Lydia!

Lastly, I very much liked the end of the plot as well, where Avram was beside himself with joy that Auryen and I were going to go easy on him and didn’t blame him for his brother being a thieving bastard. I think I can see Kendeshel wanting to just hang out with this guy periodically and have a drink with him, after this adventure. Out of general “Redguards with checkered pasts” solidarity!

New plan for horse management

Since Legacy of the Dragonborn gives the player a frigging airship, this really cuts down on the need to have to have a horse to get anywhere. But it also creates a bit of confusion, I found. Because if I do have an active horse while I’m also using the airship, it becomes very easy to lose track of where the hell I left my horse.

So it was during this session that I decided my travel strategy for this run, moving forward: use the Dev Aveza for biggest travel distances, but maintain a local horse in various places so that I can still mount up for smaller journeys. And also take advantage of Convenient Horses’ ability to tell a horse “this place is your home”. This should ensure that if the horse I’m riding is no longer active, it’ll go back to the place I want it to be at when I need it again.

Trying to figure out where the hell Heidrun was after I ran Shadows of One’s Past led me to one more thing I hadn’t tried with Project AHO content yet: the Conjure Jumper spell.

This turned out to summon a spider-like, ridable Dwemer mechanism–and I didn’t actually like it much, just because it was so spider-like and skittery. When I climbed onto it, it reminded me very much of Yagrum Bagarn in Morrowind. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a very intriguing character, but wow was that not a visual association I wanted for my Dragonborn! So I don’t think I’ll be using that spell again. I’ll need to hold out for Arvak and the Daedric Horse for my summonable mounts, as this playthrough continues.

Signing on with the Imperial Legion

This ties straight into what I was saying above about Kendeshel wanting to reaffirm control over her life–but also, her being pissed off at having seen Shaglak at Mixwater Mill again. I will headcanon here that yes, Kendeshel totally went to Castle Dour to look for him. And just to go easy on Shags, I’m going to assume that he did in fact show up at the Temple of the Divines. But I think he’ll also join up with the Vigil of Stendarr–because that way he can pursue a holy redemption arc and still get to kick the asses of vampires and Daedra! I think walloping Daedra with a mace would be therapeutic for him.

(Of course, yes yes, I know pragmatically that he’ll be parked at Mixwater Mill for the rest of this run. Work with me here! I’m building a narrative. ;D)

As for Kendeshel herself, I decided she became bound and determined to not be caught by surprise ever again. And for that matter, she wants access to more allies who can back her up if she discovers Sadrith Kegran is going to continue to be a problem in Eastmarch. So she signed on with the Imperial Legion.

Unsurprisingly, Tullius did not have his usual snarky lines about seeing me at Helgen–because in this playthrough, he didn’t! Alternate Start did clean that conversation up pretty smoothly, though it made it also noticeably shorter. Heh.

Just as with the Shadows of One’s Past plot, I found that the ability to call up three atronachs let me cut a swath through Fort Hraggstad. Kendeshel definitely did it faster than either Delga or Kendis, ha!

This time through, I also found the Cloak of the Northern Paladin in that fort. This being another unique cloak courtesy of Cloaks of Skyrim.

Running Dead Men’s Respite

The exterior of this site had been tweaked a bit by Legacy, I saw, since it had a dig site just outside rather than within the barrow itself. I liked that placement, since it varied things up a bit from the other barrows I’ve hit with Kendeshel so far. It fit nicely at the edge of the wide stone porch right in front of the door.

My atronach squad definitely made itself helpful here, too. Three flame atronachs made that final boss fight with King Olaf One-Eye and his draugr a lot more lively, that’s for sure!

Also, Olaf had an extra artifact this time: the Ice Blade of the Monarch. Heh, the wiki says I could have picked up a quest to track this item by reading Auryen’s notes on it. Which just goes to show that I really damn well ought to read Auryen’s notes, just to see what else I might discover.

Joining the Companions

This is for the very same reasons I had Kendeshel join the Legion–because she is determined to not be taken by surprise again, and she wants allies at her back if she has to ever go back to Sadrith Kegran and burn it the fuck down. Until then, she wants to be able to kick more ass, too. And the Companions are absolutely a good path for that.

It was kind of hilarious to be given a bed in Jorrvaskr, really. I will assume for the narrative that Kendeshel was polite enough to not point out that she has an entire house in Whiterun and doesn’t need a bed in Jorrvaskr. Not to mention the airship. ;D But hey, the right to claim any of the open beds in Jorrvaskr is still useful, and every so often I may actually want one of those beds just for RP purposes. We’ll see!

Civil war champions fight

Here was another place where the Time Break spell totally saved my ass, because the first two times I tried this fight, I got one-shotted by all the Stormcloaks who swarmed me. Which was, I think, entirely a question of how I’d geared up in the Imperial Dragon armor and was not leveled to speak of at all on Heavy Armor. So ironically, I’m a lot squishier in heavy armor than I am in light!

But once I threw the Time Break spell, I was able to take everybody out in short order. And didn’t even lose any of the Imperials backing me up! And my Imperial backup were all very pleased about this, to be sure.

One other side detail I want to note here is that on the way to the third iteration of this fight, the Khajiit that jumped me was wearing the usual assortment of random armor–and in this particular case, two of the pieces he had on were Tribunal armor. That amuses me for backstory consideration! Did that Khajiit swipe that armor off of some Dunmer somewhere? Has it been circulating in the hands of bandits since the fall of the Tribunal? Interesting to think about.

I did of course have to confiscate all the Stormcloaks’ gear, including the Storm-Bear gear, in the name of the Empire and also in the name of my museum.

Korvanjund

Since this is a spot I haven’t run nearly as often as a bunch of the rest of the map, I still have to remind myself how to do certain things in it. Like finding the lever to lift the gate, as well as working out the upper walkway route to get past the Stormcloak ambush partway through the barrow.

But aside from that, running this went smoothly. And yet again, Time Break and the atronachs were super helpful.

And now I have the first word of the Slow Time Shout! Once I have all three words of it, I should compare how well it stacks up against Time Break. Though still the spell has the major advantage of not having a cooldown for casting, too. It’s only restricted by my magicka pool!

Next time

Kendeshel’s next post will feature fighting off the Stormcloak invasion of Whiterun (with bonus giant Stormcloaks!); beginning recruiting personnel for the Explorer’s Society; adopting Sofie; running Dustman’s Cairn with Farkas, and discovering holy crap he’s a werewolf; getting inducted officially as a bard; intercepting a Stormcloak courier’s orders, and delivering them to Rikke for some forgery action; helping the Empire take Fort Dunstad; and retrieving all three of the missing instruments for the Bards College.

Also, I got a ridiculously high number of dragons in Solitude! Which led to me asking for help on the Legacy of the Dragonborn Discord, and learning how to use xEdit to make myself a patch to fix a cell height problem!

Screenshots

A bunch of screenshots in this one, so click to expand…

Editing to add

• 11/26/2023: Restored missing gallery.
• 10/20/2024: Converted gallery to native WordPress one. And put it behind a Details block, since it’s large. Added the AHO and Project AHO tags to the post as well, since this post has commentary about the AHO.