In Which Kendeshel Meets a Dragon and Begins an Excavation

Time for catchup with Kendeshel and Legacy of the Dragonborn! Main Skyrim action covered here: clearing Kolskeggr Mine of the Forsworn; meeting up with Delphine and Esbern at Karthspire, and in parallel, running the Crypt of the Heart quest; going to High Hrothgar and meeting Paarthurnax; rescuing Gogh the goblin; running Wolfskull Cave for the Potema quest; helping out the Hall of the Dead in Markarth with a cannibal problem; and running Dead Man’s Dread.

Also significant spoilers in this post for the Legacy of the Dragonborn Skyrim mod, including location of the last two members of the Explorers Society that I needed to recruit; further action with the Shattered Legacy quest; and the first part of running the quest The Excavation of Windcaller Pass.

Play by play

Play dates: 11/7, 11/10/2023
Session numbers in this run: 26-27

Tuesday the 7th

Picked up in Markarth
Popped into the Silver-Blood Inn long enough to read the book to launch Crypt of the Heart
Then stashed some stuff on the Dev Aveza
Slept and got up in the morning
Marked the stables and Salvius Farm for the map
Saw the Khajiit camp out
Went just north of there and tracked down the Grey Spotted Horse, then tamed her! <3
Returned to the Khajiit camp and sold Ri’saad assorted things, including the Thalmor gear I was still carrying from the Ratway
Went to the Markarth stables and waited a bit until the stable keeper was around
Then registered my new horse; this one is now the Rigmor for my game
Put Traveler gear on her courtesy of Convenient Horses and turned on training
Went back into Markarth since the quest marker for one of the two people I needed to recruit was actually pointing inside Markarth
This one was for Madras the Dunmer who turned out to be hanging out with Calcelmo
Saw the opening convo with Brother Verulus and Thongvor Silver-Blood
Talked to the priest and got the prompt to check out the Hall of the Dead
Then recruited Madras to join the Guild
Went back out of Markarth again and rode over to Left Hand Mine to talk to my other contact there
Got Kyre Oldenson also on board with the Guild
Also picked up the quest to clear Kolskeggr Mine while I was at it
Then headed over to hit the gravesite for Crypt of the Heart
There must have been a spriggan active somewhere near me because I had a burst of unexpected hostile animals, a goat and then a mudcrab coming right up onto the bridge to attack me–but they weren’t glowing, so I don’t know what the hell was up, really
Got the prompt to follow the ghost
Took out the usual bear right by Dushnikh Yal
Made it to the grave and fought the Forsworn there, and nabbed some stuff off of them for display purposes
Got the shaman’s note to find the heart at Karthspire, then also picked up the Iron and Steel Spell Knight armor
Coming back from that, got cornered by a couple more bears and whacked them with my dwarven sword
This triggered an odd version of an encounter with a Fugitive NPC, see below
Saw Ri’saad’s Khajiit on the road again, heading towards Whiterun
Khajiit reacted to Imperials vs. Forsworn up at the unmarked camp not far from the road, but didn’t get close enough to that fight to engage
Proceeded to Karthspire and saw a blood dragon strafing the place, so rode over to attack it
Called up three storm atronachs to zap it, and downed it onto the nearby hill across the river
Esbern came running over as I came back down from taking out the dragon, and I spotted Delphine going at it with the Forsworn, so called up the dremora and we ran the camp
Got the corrupted heart, then went in to run Karthspire proper
Did not repro Delphine’s getting stuck at the door, but she did have issues with the torch she lit being invisible, LOL
Found a Jade Palace carving right by the chest at the entrance to Sky Haven Temple, and nabbed that for museum display
Did Alduin’s Wall convo as per usual
Then got the Blades gear, and this time also took an extra Blades sword for display purposes
Took a swing through the room with the beds just in case any interesting items were in there, but didn’t find anything else
Slept in one of the beds since it was quite late
Went back out and got my horse, sorry for leaving you out here on your own, Rigmor!
Rode back to the gravesite and purified the corrupted heart at the Shrine of Mara (and got prompted to follow Mara, but sorry Mara, I’m already on team Julianos)
Got the Ebony Spell Knight armor
Cleared Kolskeggr Mine of Forsworn, and hit all the gold veins while I was in there
Returned to Left Hand Mine to tell them the mine was clear
Then returned to Markarth and hit the Hall of the Dead to take out Eola (officially failed the quest, but hey, Kendeshel has no time for a cannibal’s bullshit attempt to get her onto Team Cannibal)
Slept on the Dev Aveza, then flew over to High Hrothgar
Landing spot parked me right by the steps, and I did get a gangplank instead of a ladder, awesome
Easily spotted the camp near the steps where the guardian I needed to talk to was hanging out
Talked to the guardian, then went in to talk to Arngeir
Got a pointer to the Word of Power at Lost Tongue Overlook, then got him to point me at Paarthurnax (and this time took the conversational route that didn’t have him get snippy at me)
Went out to learn Clear Skies, then headed up to talk to the dragon!
Hit a silver vein on the way up
Killed a couple of ice wraiths and a frost troll
Talked to Paarthurnax, and got the pointer to find the Elder Scroll
Meditated with him on Fus and got the Force Without Effort perk
Went up to get the Notched Pickaxe and hit the ebony and malachite veins
Next stop: Riften
Took the airship there, went out through the gates as I was pondering where to go next–and got another dragon
Took it out, but this also got me an opportunity to give Dravin back his bow, because he was one of the onlookers
During that convo, saw several Imperial guards suddenly whip out their weapons and start shooting at something else nearby, which turned out to be a troll
Saw Ahkari’s caravan was on its way to Riften, so decided to do a couple more local things to give them time to arrive
Hoofed it over to Lost Tongue Overlook to run my pending Word of Power directive
Took out the dragon with a storm atronach squad
Got the word for Dismay off the Word Wall and looted the boss chest
Next stop: Gromm’s Pass
Fucked this up slightly by not reading the Blue God’s journal when I found it, and I found Gogh without reading the journal–so i failed that specific objective, but did at least get Gogh, so that’s all good
Returned to Riften
The Khajiit had arrived, so gave Kharjo his amulet back and got his offer to journey with me if I needed him
Finally returned to Solitude and checked in at the Guildhall
Latoria gave me a ring called Wanderlust that she’d created for me, since she made a bunch of them for all the new society members, excellent
After that, spent a bunch of time putting things on display and a bunch of stuff in my sell chest
Did a bunch of smithing, got my Smithing back up over 60, and unlocked Arcane Blacksmithing again
Made a boatload of jewelry with all that gold from Kolskeggr, and then enchanted a bunch of it to chuck into the sell chest
Leveled up twice in this session, went from 49 to 51
Closing in on 900 displays!
Saved in the Safehouse until next time

Friday the 10th

Picked up at the Safehouse
Went out with Gogh to get my horse Heidrun, and started riding over to hit Wolfskull Cave
Saw bear attacking someone near the crossroads, which turned out to be Plautis Carvain and his bodyguard; somebody else ran off from the bear, but didn’t see who it was, maybe Salonia?
Plautis and the bodyguard though were definitely dead, oh wells; took their valuables
Then headed over to Wolfskull and ran the place; not difficult with three Dremora lords
Returned to Solitude and reported in with Falk; got his reward for the quest
Slept at the Safehouse
Picked up donation and sales money
Decided to run The Restless next, and went to Castle Dour
Spotted a Stormcloak prisoner just wandering around loose–but with bound hands o.O
Found the cell and persuaded the guard to let me in to have a look
Found the pirate’s dead body and note, and the crumbling wall–but knocked that over before I looked at the loose brick to get the map, oops
So had to go out and come back in again before I satisfied the objective to look at the brick
Headed back out again to get my horse so I could go find the boat to Blackbone Isle
Got a little turned around trying to figure out how to get there, and had to backtrack!
Finally took the road that led north past the docks, and killed a few critters en route
Found a shrine to Sheogorath!
Also found Sigar, a cannibal in rags leaning over a dead High Elf
He was all OH NO I didn’t kill her! I just wanted to make sure the body was properly buried! But then he went I CANNOT BEST YOU and ran off
Proceeded to the shipwreck, and took out the various bandits very quickly thanks to three Dremora
Body of the bandit chief Celeste was invisible for some reason; I had to doublecheck I had the quest marker on to get the Blackwater Blade off of her
Proceeded to take the boat over to the island, and explored it a little bit more this time
Mined a couple of moonstone veins
Killed a few bone wolves and zombies
Investigated a different shipwreck, but that one wasn’t interesting
Then went in to investigate Dead Man’s Dread, and cut a swath through the place quickly
Got Cyrus’ stuff, including his saber, but this did not satisfy the quest I had from Auryen’s notes; this is another place where the AE collides with Legacy, I guess?
Took the boat back, got my horse, and fast traveled back to Katla’s Farm
It was raining, so I fished at the sawmill, but didn’t catch anything interesting
Returned to Solitude and sold stuff at Radiant Raiment and Bits and Pieces
Returned to the Safehouse for more inventory managing and putting things on display
Decided to hit Whiterun next, since I was starting to feel like running Wyrmstooth, and picking up Rulnik as a follower
On the way out, cut through the Explorers Guild house to talk to Patero
This kicked off the quest to go excavate Windcaller Pass! And since that was very near Whiterun anyway, I decided to go ahead and run that
Patero rounded up everybody and got them ready to go, and I said I’d meet them all there
Discovered that the gangplank to the Dev Aveza was up so I had to fast travel onto the ship, wut? (Fortunately this issue didn’t persist)
Took the ship to Whiterun, at which point Heidrun was no longer on the deck
Checked in at Breezehome; hi Lydia! No assassins? Good!
Hi kids! Why thank you for that nice present, Sofie!
Dropped off a boatload of bears on the doll rack and also the extra doll I was carrying
Got quest to go beat up Klija Wolf-Claw for the Companions
Then went looking for Rulnik; he was not in the Temple of Kynareth
Returned to the market at which point I remembered oh right I gotta give the goldfish to Mila
Did that, and immediately spotted Rulnik after; got him on board with following me
Followed Mila over to her house and accepted her 1 septim for the goldfish
Headed out with Rulnik and Gogh to go to Windcaller Pass
Quite the sizable camp present!
Checked in with Patero and got the objective to head in and help the team out; they were having issues with the wildlife in the cavern and needed me to help clear the place
Explored with there with Rulnik and Gogh, until I found a bunch of spiders
Including one very, very big spider named Eyha, who was a Web Mother along the same style as the one in Cronvangr Cave
Took out all the spiders and got directive to report back to Marassi
Hit a gold vein on the way back
Also found an icy shard and got a directive to show that to Auryen
Reached Marassi and reported back that the wild animals were cleared out but further passage was blocked
Showed Auryen the shard and he said it was a piece of Hrormir’s Ice Staff, made out of “eternium”
Marassi dropped a hint about how if I wanted to stay and help out the digging would go faster
So we all headed back in to work on the blockage, then Kyre told me the way ahead was blocked by two dragons
I went ahead again to take out the dragons
Found a large named troll called Hurraka and took him out; got a key off of him and investigated the nearby room that this unlocked, which netted me another icy shard
Found an etched emblem similar to the ones on the 7,000 steps, and yep this sure is Windcaller territory!
Made it to the dragons, in a center area called Windcaller’s Retreat, and took both of them out
Spotted an inactive Word Wall in this area, but apparently there was a second one I missed, will need to explore more
Found a chest the dragons were guarding, with a jade claw in it
Again got directive to report back to Marassi, so had to go all the way back through the northern half of the cave system
Got back to Marassi and reported in
Told Auryen we were all going in and he wished us good luck
Led the team back to Windcaller’s Retreat, and then we headed into the southern portion of the cavern system
Found some trolls and had to take them out, which went quickly with a large team! I had to only call up two Dremora, LOL
Reached another blockage
Stopped at that point and saved until next time

Clearing Kolskeggr Mine

I had to LOL at getting the quest to clear Kolskeggr Mine, while at Left Hand to pick up Kyre Oldenson. Skaggi Scar-Face was all “You can’t handle a group of Forsworn by yourself. If their axes don’t get you, their magic will.”

To which Kendeshel, well aware at this point that she can summon a squad of atronachs or Dremora lords on demand, simply grinned broadly at the guy. “Oh, I won’t be going in alone. Trust me. I got this.”

Let it also be noted for the record that when you are capable of summoning three Dremora lords at once, running Kolskeggr Mine is not only profitable, it is also very easy. LOL. The Forsworn didn’t know what hit them.

This also, of course, raises the point that if my squad of fire atronachs is Snap, Crackle, and Pop, I really ought to also name the squad of Dremora lords. Also the frost atronachs and the storm atronachs.

I’ve put out a call to Mastodon and also asked the household what other name sets I ought to use. Here are some ideas!

Winken, Blinken, and Nod
Huey, Dewey, and Louie
Moe, Larry, and Curly
Dasher, Dancer, and Prancer (or any others of Santa’s reindeer)
Angelica, Eliza, and Peggy (my favorite, and now I totally want this for a squadron of female Dremora lords, there are mods to add female Dremora and I will need to investigate them, meanwhile this would also work for the flame atronachs)
Sparky, Boom-Boom, and Pika Pika (for the storm atronachs)
Tina, Gene, and Louise (the kids in Bob’s Burgers)

I’ll need to think about this!

On the way back from round 1 of Crypt of the Heart

Had an odd variation of the encounter with a Fugitive who spotted me hitting bears with my Ancient Dwarven Sword, which of course triggered the fire enchantment on the sword.

The Fugitive warned me to “be careful with that fire!” And oddly enough, he did not trigger the encounter to run up and give me a thing. And I saw no sign of a nearby Hunter, either.

I spotted the Fugitive again shortly afterwards, sneaking around after I crossed back over the nearby bridge. Tried to catch up with him to see if I could trigger the usual “Fugitive throws me an enchanted thing and tells me to hang onto it, then a Hunter shows up” encounter, but nope! Couldn’t get him to talk to me!

Going to High Hrothgar

Here’s another side effect of playing Legacy of the Dragonborn: if you have an airship, it’s a hell of a lot easier to get up to High Hrothgar.

And I’m not entirely sure I approve of that. Because the whole lore of the place is supposed to be that High Hrothgar is this holy, remote place, and that you can only get up there at all if you take the pilgrimage up the 7,000 steps. It’s supposed to be difficult.

And if the Dragonborn can just sweep in there on her airship any damn time she pleases, this really does rather reduce the sacred mystique of the place.

On a related note, it also has occurred to me that the airship also serves as a handy way to bypass the entire problem of freezing your ass off if you’re trying to get up the 7,000 steps in Survival Mode–if Legacy can actually coexist with Survival Mode, that is.

(And I don’t know this answer to this question. I can’t ask about this on the Legacy of the Dragonborn Discord, since I’m playing on the Steam Deck and they don’t offer support for non-PC platforms. So if anybody actually knows the answer to this, hey, drop me a comment and let me know!)

As I wrote in Kendis’ playthrough, getting up to High Hrothgar in Survival Mode is brutal. It’s made even more complicated by how once you get there, there’s actually no place inside for you to sleep. So if you need to rest, you have to make a camp outside, with a campfire to keep warm. Assuming Legacy can coexist with Survival Mode, having the Dev Aveza helps this a lot. Because you can get quickly to High Hrothgar, and you have a readily available place to warm up and sleep.

I do expect it’d still be cold AF on the main deck of the airship. Belowdecks, though, you’d at least be out of the direct line of any wind or snow coming in. And you’d have the benefit of warmth from the ship’s on-board forge as well as its main power source.

For Kendeshel’s run, though, Survival Mode is not an issue. So I’ve just got the question of how I feel about being able to get there on the airship!

And heh, Kendeshel’s already been up and down those steps once. I feel like she probably thinks she’s done the place its due respect by going up the 7,000 steps on foot on her first visit. But now she’s got her own goddamn airship, and if this means she can go straight to High Hrothgar by air when she needs to, she’s going straight to High Hrothgar by air.

And once I actually got to High Hrothgar…

I had two reasons to go there, this time. One: main plot stuff, as you do, hitting up Arngeir for info about Dragonrend and then getting the directive to go up and see Paarthurnax. But also two: since this is a Legacy run, I also needed to find a guardian of a shard of the Amulet of Kings, as per Auryen’s advice.

And fortunately, once I got there, finding the guardian was easy. I had gangplank access right off the deck of the airship to the bottom of the main steps. And a short distance away from there, I spotted the camp where the guardian was hanging out.

So I went over to talk to him. he tried to blow me off initially, but i showed him the shard and the letter I had, and told him what had happened to Byron. That convinced him I was on the level. He gave me his shard, and asked me to go track down another guardian that was supposed to be coming up from Cyrodiil, Ezra.

Not sure when I’ll pick up with that yet, because Kendeshel does have a lot on her plate! But we’ll see how her next several sessions go.

Slight oddity on the way up to Lost Tongue Overlook

While waiting for Ahkari’s Khajiit to make it back to Riften, I went over to Lost Tongue Overlook to get the Word of Power there. And ran into a small bit of weird: the spellcaster trap partway up the steps to the lair did not have a soul gem in it.

There was no sign of what might have happened to it. I searched the ground surrounding the pillar where it should have been, but didn’t see a soul gem lying around anywhere. And there was also no sign of any obvious change that might have been introduced via Legacy of the Dragonborn or any of the rest of the mods I’m running.

The wikis I follow say there are apparently known issues with that spellcaster trap periodically missing its soul gem. But the issues reported on the relevant pages involve the trap still firing off even if the soul gem isn’t there, and I did not get that behavior. So open question here as to whether I triggered some weird variant of that issue that just hasn’t been reported to the wikis yet, or if I had something happen because of my load order.

But since this meant I got a free reprieve from getting blasted by a spellcaster trap, can’t exactly complain about this. Lucky me, I guess! LOL.

Adding Gogh to Team Dragonborn, but only briefly

I ran the Blue in the Face quest to pick up Gogh, who I’ve enjoyed having on previous runs. But it didn’t take long for me to realize that a big important change was now in effect: Gogh was not summoning his storm atronach in battle.

I’m assuming this is because the CC patches for Legacy impacted his instance of the Spear of Bitter Mercy, but I do not know this for sure. Legacy’s page about that artifact doesn’t mention a non-CC version of the artifact, as I’ve seen for others that have Legacy versions conflicting with CC versions.

I think this means though that I’ll need to have Gogh stand down. If he can’t call a storm atronach he’s pretty pointless in battle since he’s only level 4 and so squishy. Plus, with this run, I can call three of my own storm atronachs. So next time I fire up Kendeshel I think I’ll just need to send Gogh home. I’ll assume for narrative’s sake that he decided to try to go back to Cyrodiil to find others of his kind.

Stormcloak prisoner wandering around Castle Dour

When I went to Castle Dour to move the plot along for Dead Man’s Dread, I spotted a Stormcloak prisoner just out and wandering around the place, albeit with bound hands. Which was weird!

I tried to talk to him, and got a prompt asking if I wanted to free him. I declined this prompt, which made the prisoner say “Damn faithless Imperials!”

LOL. Sorry, my dude, I’m an Imperial Legate. Your bitching ain’t gonna fly with me.

The Restless quest

This is only the second time I’ve actually run Dead Man’s Dread, since I skipped it during Harrowhark’s playthrough. Overall it mostly worked the same way it did in Shenner’s run, but there were a couple of minor bumpy bits.

First one was the body of the bandit chief Celeste, who I had to kill to get the Blackwater Blade, being invisible. I only found her because I realized I didn’t actually have the correct quest marker active, and once I turned that on, I was able to find where Celeste had fallen. Why the hell she was invisible, you got me! I wasn’t able to find any mention of this kind of a bug when I checked the wikis.

And second, there was a bit of a conflict between this Creation and Legacy–because Cyrus’ saber is a thing Legacy implemented its own version of. And I had a separate quest to find it, courtesy of Auryen’s notes from the museum office.

There was still a saber in the captain’s quarters of Dead Man’s Dread. But that saber did not satisfy Auryen’s quest. From what I see on the Legacy wiki, I’ll have to look elsewhere to find the saber that’ll do that.

So apparently in this timeline, Cyrus has multiple sabers out in the world? Heh. He’s supposed to have been an important hero, so sure why not. If he was anything like the Dragonborn, he must have accumulated lots of weapons during his adventures!

Sidebar: no safe in the Safehouse?

I only realized during these two sessions that even though I have an entire Safehouse to live in, that Safehouse does not include an actual safe. Even though it does include an entire secret room to stash gold and jewels in!

Which surprised me! This seemed a startling detail to leave out of a player home environment that’s otherwise extremely useful and detailed.

And this raises the question of where a good place to put all the secret evidence I got from the Thalmor would be. Usually I stuff those objects into one of the safes in the cellar at Lakeview.

But Legacy does still give me options here, on board the Dev Aveza. Which does have a safe. And the secret smuggler’s compartment, for that matter.

Hmm. I think I’ll stash the Thalmor documents there. 😀

Launching the Excavation of Windcaller Pass quest

Last but not least, after running Dead Man’s Dread, I got in the mood to go to Whiterun, pick up Rulnik as a follower, and go talk to the guy at the Bannered Mare so I could launch Wyrmstooth.

On the way out from the Explorers Guild hall to go to the airship, I stopped to talk to Patero Marassi to see if he had the next quest for building an outpost. Answer: no. (I found out later that this one won’t be available until after I run the Forsworn Conspiracy, so that’s okay.)

What he did have, though, was the prompt to launch the Excavation of Windcaller Pass! I guess this unlocked when I got the last two members of the society! So now that I have all five of the explorers, we’re equipped to run excavations, yay!

And Patero even mentioned that Auryen would be coming. Which definitely got Kendeshel’s attention. It must be a big important excavation if Auryen’s actually coming out to do field work! 😉

I would have thought maybe that this would be the point at which all the NPCs would need to get on my airship–because there are multiple bunks belowdecks, those have to be used by somebody at some point, right? But no. The conversational prompts I had with Marassi just allowed for my telling him I’d meet everybody there.

So I went out to the Dev Aveza–and discovered to some surprise that its gangplank was up. So there was no way I could physically get onto the ship. I had to fast travel onto it. Which of course also moved Heidrun as my last ridden horse onto the Deck, which I had to ignore. Taking the ship to Whiterun moved Heidrun off the deck and to the Whiterun stables, as I found once I set out for the excavation site. But I rode Heimdall, my local-to-Whiterun horse, which sent Heidrun back to Katla’s Farm where I needed her to be.

Since that one weird blip of functionality I haven’t seen this problem occur again. But I’ll need to keep an eye out for this, I guess?

And onward to the main point: finding a sizable camp at Windcaller Pass and getting the excavation underway!

Overall, I mostly enjoyed the hell out of running this plot. It was a little giggleworthy that I kept having to be the one to kill all the wild animals in the cave, or help them dig through blockages, or whatever. But that’s part and parcel of being the player character, so that’s all good.

There were a lot of wild animals to take out as well, some of which were very large and very nasty, and also named. Like Eyha the spider, a Web Mother style spider similar to the one in Cronvangr Cave. And Hurraka the troll.

And there were two dragons to fight in the center bit of the cavern system. Where I found a dragon claw to use, a couple of inactive Word Walls, and in general signs that yes, this whole cavern system had been a retreat of Jurgen Windcaller. Which I thought was an interesting touch of lore. And having two dragons to fight did help make me feel like I had a specific reason to be there, since I’m the Dragonborn and all. As opposed to just the Explorers Society Guildmaster!

I mean yes, sure, the excavation is right up the alley of the entire point of my job as Relic Hunter! But everybody else on this dig was perfectly capable of swinging a pick and gathering artifacts and such. Me, I was the only one there who could eat tasty, tasty dragon souls. Yum.

That said, I still totally LOLed once Marassi dropped a big hint at me about how if I stayed to help out, the digging would go a lot faster! Dude. Of course I’m going to stay and help out, yes I know, I’m the Dragonborn and have other things I should probably be doing. But you are doing archaeology and THIS IS THE ENTIRE POINT OF MY RELIC HUNTING JOB.

Side note about those dragons, too: I see on the Legacy wiki that apparently in earlier versions of the mod, the dragons had two-syllable names. The wiki doesn’t say, but I wonder if they changed them to make the names more lore-friendly? Since dragons canonically have names made up of three Words of Power, as Arngeir tells the player in the game’s main quest.

I had only two minor nitpicks with running the place, overall. One, the cavern complex is really large, and there was a lot of running back and forth I had to do to accomplish various objectives. This got a little tedious after a while, and I really wished I could fast travel to the central, open area where I’d fought the dragons. Or that I could have uncovered a handy shortcut tunnel or something.

(I have since seen on the wiki that apparently I could have fast traveled to that central area? Whoops, my bad. I’ll need to doublecheck my map and confirm the presence of a fast travel marker there. There seems to be a bit of weirdness with nomenclature, though, because when I got out into that area I triggered a location discovery message for “Windpass Refuge”. And from what I see on the wiki, that seems like a leftover name from an earlier version of the mod?)

And two, I kind of side-eyed the quest with the icy shards, just on the grounds that they were supposed to be a material called “eternium”. Which Auryen described to me as a kind of concentrated stalhrim. And I admit that I didn’t see the point of that, why not just use stalhrim? Making up a whole new material for the staff to be made out of seemed a little over the top in an excavation quest already super jam packed with interesting details.

(But again: this is a minor nitpick. As I’ve said earlier in this playthrough’s posts, just because I would not have chosen a particular story detail doesn’t necessarily mean that that story detail is bad. It just means I personally wouldn’t have done it that way. And that’s okay! Now, moving on.)

Next time

Kendeshel’s next post will feature the conclusion of this excavation! But also some side questing, taking out Potema for reals this time, solving the murder problem in Windhelm and getting named Brunwulf Free-Winter’s thane, and last but not least, starting action in Wyrmstooth!