In Which Elessir Opens an Oblivion Gate and Joins the Dawnguard

Short-ish post for Elessir’s Skyrim run, just because nothing terribly new here. But I do as always have some commentary!

Main action here: finishing running The Cause; getting the Gray Cowl of Nocturnal and the sword Bloodthirst; a bit of Thieves Guild shenanigans; and finally joining the Dawnguard.

Play by play

Play dates: 11/15, 11/18/2023
Session numbers in this run: 35-36

Wednesday the 15th

Picked up at Lakeview
Attempted to head out to run Darkshade and get Roggi’s family shield, but crashed shortly after passing the Guardian Stones
Take two coming out of Lakeview: fought a bear just after coming down the hill
Heard another bear just shy of the bandits near the Guardian Stones
Invested in Alvor’s forge in Riverwood, then sold him the glass battleaxe I was carrying
Proceeded from there to Darkshade, and killed assorted critters en route
Ignored bandit out at Valtheim Towers
Reached and ran Darkshade; got the shield from in there; killed assorted trolls
Hit three gold veins while there, then proceeded on my way
Stopped at the iron vein along the road
Passed a couple of Vigilants of Stendarr while heading towards Faldar’s Tooth
Killed more assorted critters: cave bears, frostbite spiders, wolves
Left the road eventually and cut cross-country
Came up behind Faldar’s Tooth and started running it
It dinged as cleared even before I set foot in the place, because one of the bandits who came at me was a bandit chief
No real issues taking out all the exterior bandits, what with summoning my daedroth
Very very overloaded though after looting a bunch of bandits
Headed inside to find the note about Bloodthirst, and killed a few more bandits
Got the note about the sword and got out again
Whistled for unicorn and rode to Riften
Slept at Honeyside
Sold assorted things to Bersi and Balimund
Smelted some of my iron loot into ingots
Boinged from Riften to Windstad to drop off building materials but realized I was out of corundum, so stashed building mats there for now as well as the Blade of Hjaalmarch
Boinged to Kynesgrove and checked in with Iddra about Roggi
Slept at the inn
Got up in the morning and gave Roggi his shield; got his offer to journey with me
Rode down toward Red Scar Cavern to run the rest of The Cause, but crashed on the way down
Thrown back to coming out of the inn at Kynesgrove
This time fast traveled down to Shor’s Watchtower and rode from there
Killed a few critters and bandits en route
Took out the exterior guard and swiped her robes to infiltrate the place
Saw cultists attacking Thistle; HEY YOU ASSHOLES LAY OFF MY BUN
Got overloaded again so ran the rest of the cavern, as well as the Deadlands, very slowly
Got Scourge and Torment, and the Conjure Daedric Horse spell
Fought some of the cultists on the way out to help out the Vigil (but avoided calling the Dremora lord, ‘cause, well, they would have frowned on that)
Got out again and boinged down to Riften to drop Scourge and Torment off in Shadowfoot Sanctum
Cleared my ingredients satchel there and had forgotten I’d left goldfish there! So got goldfish to bring to Mila
Boinged to Whiterun and dropped off that goldfish for the kid
Boinged to Lakeview and Hejlarchen, to pick up building mats
Boinged to Windstad and worked on building the Main House
Saved there until next time

Saturday the 18th

Started back up at Windstad
Went over and got the bone wolf to clear that quest out
Went to Solitude and parked Lucien in Proudspire
Robbed Erikur’s house to get the info on the deed
Gisli woke up and spotted me, oops, but got out safely
Got Lucien back on duty the next morning
Got courier with Mila’s second request for a goldfish
Sold assorted loot
Convinced Gisli to sell me the deed to take the problem off her hands
Boinged to Whiterun and dropped off second goldfish with Mila
Rode over to Broken Fang Cave and got the Bloodthirst sword
Boinged to Windhelm to take care of my double Sweep/Bedlam job
Punched Rolff’s lights out
HI ASSHOLE GUESS WHAT! THIS GRAYSKIN IS THE DRAGONBORN
Parked Lucien by the gate, then went over and broke into Viola’s house
She spotted me just as I nabbed item number three DAMMIT, but again got out safely
Un-parked Lucien and continued
Boinged to Silverdrift Lair and ran the place–slowly because overloaded ;P
Heard a dragon while coming out of there, but it didn’t get close enough to engage
Boinged to Heljarchen for supplies check, and to smelt down a bunch of iron weapons I brought out of the barrow
Boinged to Riften and checked in with Vex and Delvin, and got payment for their jobs
Got new jobs from each but didn’t bother to line them up in the same city
Sold a bunch of stuff to Tonilia
Dropped Bloodthirst off in Shadowfoot Sanctum
Came back topside and sold stuff to Bersi and Balimund
Also ran the rest of the Gray Cowl quest at the gravesite
Got fishing contest quest from Viriya
Finally headed over to join the Dawnguard
Found Vigilants vs. Dremora at the bridge; Vigilants won the fight
Made it to Dayspring Canyon without incident; as per usual, Agmaer walked up with me
Did intro scene with Isran and Tolan, and got directive to go to Dimhollow Crypt
But first actually went to Lakeview!
Got Lydia to replenish the log supply, some quarried stone and clay, a chicken, a horse, and a carriage driver
Picked up building mats from the cellar, then boinged to Windstad–and immediately realized I’d forgotten to retrieve the stone and clay Lydia bought, oops
Built out most of the Main House and quarried enough stone to make the cellar
Built stuff until I ran out of iron and saved there until next time

Commentary

It’s been a while since I ran Roggi Knot-Beard’s quest to give him his shield, but now I’ve done that again, so yay I have him available as a follower. By which I actually mean “as a steward if I want him for it”, but that’s the question! I’ve already got appointed stewards at Lakeview, Heljarchen, and Goldenhills. Which leaves only Windstad. And I’m not sure I care enough to get Windstad an entire extra steward, or if I’ll just have Valdimar steward it up there.

Running The Cause with Thistle following me into Red Scar Cavern triggered a weird wave of cultists attacking the bun. Which seems like possibly the same issue that causes the vampires in Fellglow Keep to attack Thistle! So this bun pisses off vampires and Mehrunes Dagon cultists. Snerk. Maybe Thistle is an avatar of Arkay? 😀

Getting spotted not once by twice during thievery efforts was just embarrassing. Clearly, I need to spend some effort on improving Elessir’s Sneak! I have several more Guild jobs to get through before he can become Guildmaster, after all.

While finally heading to Dayspring Canyon to join the Dawnguard, I came across my first instance of the post-Cause encounter involving three Dremora in the wild. These were fighting some Vigilants, and the Vigilants won the fight. But some Stormcloaks may also have been involved! I saw three of them walking away from the scene, but wasn’t sure if they were actually in on the melee–the action was too far away when I spotted it to know for sure.

Also, I wasn’t entirely sure if the Vigilants were pissy about my summoning the daedroth to try to help out with the fight. When it vanished, one of them yelled “Get him!” But none of them actually seemed to want to attack me.

Notable Lucien lines

I’ve noted this Lucien line before but he did it again while the Oblivion gate opened in Red Scar Cavern, so LOL:

“Do you know, I think this might be my favourite cave we’ve been in all day.”

And while we’re in the Deadlands, Lucien does his level best with an attempt at diplomacy. To exactly no one’s surprise, this does not work:

“Look, you’re clearly a reasonable sort of… Daedric entity… can we not just agree to differ and go our separate ways?”

This, son, is entirely why I keep snapping shots of Skyrim’s night skies!

“Nights like this, I wish I had my telescope with me. When I was a boy, I used to sit and watch the stars for hours. They’re just entrancing.”

I think you and I both know there are more of these bone wolves running around Skyrim, my dude, or were you not paying attention when I’ve killed them before?

“Phew! Those wolves were scary. Don’t think I really fancy the idea of them running around Skyrim. Let’s have an investigate – see if he made any more…”

Personally, if I’m going to have a pet following me around, I’ll go with the not-undead bunny: