In Which Finds-The-Way Slays a Thalmor Assassin and a Cruel Headmistress

Double session post for Finds-The-Way! Main action here: meeting Paarthurnax; running Volunruud; committing some light thievery in both Whiterun and Solitude; taking out J’datharr the Thalmor assassin; taking out Evethra the mad mage; acquiring the greatsword Shadowrend; showing up for a fishing contest and taking out the bandits who tried to ambush her; acquiring the hammer Nerveshatter; slaying Grelod the Kind at the Riften orphanage; and slaying Crowstooth and Alvasorr the Rat at Arcwind Point.

Play by play

Play dates: 12/1, 12/5/2023
Session numbers in this run: 37-38

Friday the 1st

Picked up again in Lakeview after the point at which I’d rescued my stray dog (heh, just call me Finds-Her-Dog)
First item on the agenda: boinged to High Hrothgar to talk to Arngeir
Took the conversational path where Arngeir doesn’t bitch at me for talking to the Blades, and got him to teach me Clear Skies
Then went up to talk to Paarthurnax, and meditated on Fus with him after
Boinged back to Lakeview
Got a courier with the note from Quintus about repairing the White Phial
For now though grabbed all my building materials
Boinged to Windstad and built a bunch of furnishings until I ran out of iron
Boinged to Whiterun and bought more iron, but also sold assorted loot from the previous (actual) session
Took level up to 49, Magicka bump, and Extra Pockets perk finally 😀
Boinged back to Lakeview then to drop off supplies and suit up for adventuring
Heh, Sofie adopted a fox, and I’m sure the dog is just all kinds of thrilled about that, clearly this kid does like her canines, though!
Grabbed the armor I’d stashed prior to running the Thalmor Embassy
Did some alchemy to run Alchemy stat up some more
Tried to boing back to Whiterun to see if I could find Ri’saad; two of his caravan were on site but he wasn’t
Tried to ride to Markarth, but got Blood Dragon right at the Western Watchtower, so had to stop to take that out; the dragon took out a sabre cat while battling me and the tower guards
From there, rode all the way to Markarth, but no sign of Ri’saad’s full caravan
Boinged back to Whiterun from there and tried again but no Khajiit, so decided to run Volunruud
Outran another sabre cat since I was on the Dwarven Horse
Got cultists near Halted Stream Camp, and had to stop to take them out; called up Staada for help
This of course also alerted some of the bandits so we had to fight them too; saw one of the bandits taking down an elk just before they came at us
Looted two of the three cultists that I could find, and also a few of the bandits, which got me good and overloaded for running Volunruud, snerk
But got in and ran Volunruud without any issues, although slowly
Got the ceremonial weapons
Did some sniping of draugr and got a couple more points of Sneak out of this, fuck yeah
Finally made it in to fight Kvenel, and since I was now level 49 I only needed one go at him
Got the Word of Power for Aura Whisper off the wall, assorted potions, and boss chest loot
LOL, got another copy of Night Falls on Sentinel; I’ll keep that, Finds wants to give it a read if Rustleif and Seren liked it 😉
Took out the last couple of extra draugr, then returned to Whiterun
Sold a bunch of weapons and a few bits of armor to Elrindir in the Drunken Huntsman
Parked in Breezehome for a bit until optimal hour to go hit Amren’s house for the Sweep Job
Snuck in safely, with the help of the Shadowcloak of Nocturnal, and made off with the three items (and casually strolled past Amren on the way back to Breezehome, lalalala)
Partial Khajiit caravan showed up again but they were still missing Ri’saad
Tried waiting for a few hours but no go; the three of them abruptly ran off again
Tried to ride from Whiterun to Markarth again to see if I could find Ri’saad; answer: no
Decided to boing to Solitude next, and did a doubleheader of thievery
Snurched the Stone of Barenziah out of Elisif’s quarters
Then broke into Erikur’s house to get the deed for the Gray Cowl of Nocturnal quest
Was alarmed to discover Erikur was awake on the second floor of the house
Snuck past him invisible (HA TAKE THAT) only to realize I was on the wrong goddamn floor, so had to sneak past him again
Made it up to Gisli’s room and got the letter, then snuck back out and made it safely to Proudspire
Got up in the morning and did a little casual shopping
Finally found Gisli after she came out of Angeline’s Aromatics (why she was hanging out in the back room of there, damned if I know, maybe she’s studying how to poison her brother?)
Convinced her to sell me the real deed for 8,000 gold
Went over behind the Winking Skeever and got the stranger’s instructions out of the barrel, and the directive to go to Silverdrift Lair
Finally realized that I had just run Diplomatic Immunity, so Ri’saad might actually be at Windhelm?
Went out from Solitude to get my horse, and did see Ma’dran’s caravan there, so was a little concerned I wouldn’t find them at Windhelm–but boinged there nonetheless
Got flyby dragon, but more importantly, got Ri’saad, and got J’datharr
So headed into Windhelm and found Malborn in the cornerclub; played through promising to take out the assassin for him
Then went back out to the Khajiit and talked to Ri’saad
First told him the Saints and Seducers problem was taken care of, and got that quest resolved finally
Then asked him about the Thalmor spy, and he pointed me at J’datharr
HEY J’DATHARR MALBORN SAYS HI
Kicked his ass with Chillrend + Mehrunes’ Razor
Then went back in and stopped to have a little chat with Aventus Aretino; got the quest to kill Grelod the Kind
Finally went back to the cornerclub and gave Malborn the all clear
Next tried to ride down towards Mistwatch
Took the rode down past the Talos shrine to vary it up a bit
Got a zombie horde! Six of them!
Bit of a hard fight and they killed my summoned Staada quickly, but managed to dispatch them all
Proceeded to Mixwater Mill and crossed the river there, heading for the Atronach Stone
Realized I’d mis-read my quest; it wasn’t a pointer to run Mistwatch, it was to take out Evethra, but that was all fine, I wanted to do that anyway
Got what was probably a respawned Bonestrewn Crest dragon, landed practically on top of me; took it out with Dragonbane
Found a crate with some soul gems and a skill book on it that i’d already read (Tragedy in Black)
Made it over to Evethra and took her out; had ashock resistance jewelry, which helped a lot given that I was overloaded
Got her stuff, including the Arcane Blacksmithing robe, and all the various weapons and bits of ore
Hunted around to try to find the pool with Shadowrend in it
Found the pool, fought the shadow version of me, and took the greatsword version of the weapon; this was surprisingly brief!
After that returned to Lakeview
Sofie hit me up for a gift and I tried to give her one of the dolls I was carrying, but the UI wouldn’t let me do it (more on this below); sorry, kid!
Did some assorted smithing to improve a bunch of the stuff I had on me
Blew up a circlet of Alteration on the enchanter table to learn that enchantment
Boinged to Whiterun to sell a bunch of stuff
Bought some malachite to improve Chillrend and make it competitive with Dragonbane
Returned to Lakeview and did some more smithing to take care of that
Did another round of improving on the Nightingale gear as well as my dragonbone crossbow, fuck yeah \0/
Saved there until next time

Tuesday the 5th

Picked up again at Lakeview
Grabbed building mats and boinged to Windstad to do some building work there
Leveled up to 50, and got achievement for that! \0/
Returned to Lakeview and Sofie gave me scathecraw
Set out again from there even though it was late-ish
Stopped in Riverwood to rent a room at the Sleeping Giant so I wouldn’t have to deal with potential zombies on the road
Then swung up past Whiterun and then westward past the watchtower
Cut cross-country and aimed for the shrine to kick off The Cause
Passed living horse and dead bandit
Also passed giant + mammoth but did not engage
Reached the shrine and ran it as per usual, took out the two assassins there
Somewhere in here I also took out a random Blood Dragon, I think the same one I often run into when running the Gjukar’s Monument part of the Mara quest? But don’t remember if that was before or after I hit the shrine
Proceeded from there, aiming for Morthal to run the fishing contest
Aot ancient dragon right around Drelas’ Cottage, and marked the cottage for the map
Dragon buggered off a time or two to fight other local critters
Finally took it out after calling up a Dark Seducer archer and pelting it with my crossbow
Realized it was probably the Eldersblood Peak dragon, and attempted to find out
Passed some Stormcloaks on the way but did not engage
Found an easy route up to the top of Eldersblood Peak coming in from the back, and it had in fact been that dragon, so was able to get the word off the Word Wall without any issues
Took the boss chest treasure, then made my way down the front path up
Passed two dead frost trolls and took out a third live one
Marked North Cold Rock Pass for the map
Passed the unmarked hunter camp
Reached Morthal and ran the fishing contest
Took out Brutius and his two mage compatriots with help of summoned Staada
Got the Warlock’s Ring
Boinged to Riften and turned in pending jobs with Vex and Delvin
Got new Windhelm job from Vex, and new Solitude job from Delvin
Got Delvin to give me five levels of training in sneak and that was expensive
Went out on foot to run Crystaldrift Cave and get Nerveshatter
Called up Staada for that too; took out critters outside and inside the cave
Got the hammer and took out the two bandits that showed up
Mined an iron vein and a moonstone vein in there
Also got Gadnor’s staff, then returned to Riften
Not yet dark so derped around town a little
Finally ran Shadr’s quest to get Sapphire off his back
While I went into the inn to talk to Sapphire, saw that there was a random thief just running around the place, to which I went O.O
Finished helping Shadr first, got Sapphire to get off his back by threatening to tell Brynjolf (I think? I was having to try to parse the German)
Swapped into Nightingale gear, then tried to figure out what I could do about the thief, more on this below
Wound up triggering a second thief outside the inn, who the guards took out
And got Keerava to kill the thief inside the inn, at which point I looted him
By then it was late enough that I hit the orphanage to take out Grelod
Tried pickpocketing a poison onto her but then realized I didn’t have the right perk yet, so had to one-shot her with the Nightingale Bow from over in the corner
Let the kids have their HURRAY GRELOD IS DEAD bout of rejoicing
Then with Shadowcloak of Nocturnal active, high-tailed it out of the orphanage once they were all back in their beds and I could easily elude Constance
Then slept in Honeyside, and got Iona on duty in the morning
Picked up next fishing task from Viriya: hitting Dawnstar and dealing with mudcrabs, round one
Main thing I wanted to do was move The Cause along a little further, and also hit Arcwind Point
Got the Dwarven Horse, and boinged to Alchemist’s Shack
Then hoofed it up to take out the cultists at the camp and get their info
Slept at the Alchemist’s Shack, but did not bother to re-loot it
From there, rode over to Arcwind Point and took out initial dragon and draugr
Gave Iona my dragonbone crossbow and the dwarven crossbow bolts
Also called up Dark Seducer archer for help on that
Did not get an extra draugr out of the sarcophagus near the Word Wall, but did get the word
Headed up to the tower to take out Crowstooth and Alvarsorr and other draugr, no issues this time
Also got the armor off of dead Bjormund Wind-Strider
Tromped overloadedly back to get the Dwarven Horse, mounted up, and boinged back to Lakeview
Did a lot of smithing to improve that armor and other armor pieces
Gave all the dragonplate armor and an ebony shield to Iona
Saved there until next time

Way too much “stupid dog”

I was aware that there are mods to either reduce or outright eliminate people saying “Stupid dog” to dogs in Skyrim all the time. Up until now I hadn’t really noticed it being a problem in my playthroughs–but wow, it’s become noticeable in Finds-The-Way’s run now that she has the Stray Dog hanging out at Lakeview. I’ve heard “Dummer Hund” four or five times in the same visit to Lakeview in recent sessions. And that gets real old real fast.

(Oddly, I haven’t noticed it as much in Kendeshel’s run where she has Meeko at Breezehome with her two kids–but this may well be just because I haven’t actually spent much time at Breezehome in that run! It’ll be interesting to see whether I see the same problem there, once I’m able to return to Kendeshel and can maybe move the family to Proudspire.)

I’ll be considering a mod to adjust this behavior in my next fully modded playthrough, I think. Because dammit, Skyrim, they are very good dogs.

For benefit of Future Me, if I need to find Ri’saad

Meanwhile, a big learning experience I had here is that right after running Diplomatic Immunity, if I’m trying to find Ri’saad to finish off the Saints and Seducers quest, I should check Windhelm. I did a lot of running all over the place trying to locate him, and could have saved myself a lot of effort if I’d just gone straight there! I’m glad I finally remembered to check there, since I had seen Ri’saad at the caravan sometimes when J’datharr is active and I can go after him for Malborn.

It was weird though to see Ri’saad off with Ma’dran’s caravan, at least once I made it to Windhelm. But since I also saw Ma’dran’s caravan at Solitude just before, I wonder if Ri’saad was just there the whole time and Ma’dran’s caravan caught up with him when I arrived? And meanwhile the rest of Ri’saad’s caravan was just running back and forth between Whiterun and Markarth.

Which seems unfortunate for them! I should think that if Ri’saad decided he needed to hang out near Windhelm for a while, his caravan should go with him. For his protection if nothing else!

And given how the Khajiit so often don’t seem to actually get their camps set up properly in an unmodded game anyway, Khayla, Atahbah, and Ma-randu’jo didn’t even have tents to hang out in while they were waiting for their leader. They just stood around and weren’t even able to sell anything.

Getting Shadowrend

Just because I hadn’t tried it yet in previous runs with the Anniversary Edition, I finally went after Shadowrend since the spot for doing that wasn’t far from where I fought Evethra.

This was a surprisingly brief experience. The pool with the shadow weapon floating above it was pretty cool, and I liked that it kept changing forms. I barely got a look at the shadow me, though. She summoned a familiar to come at me, but it didn’t take very long for me to kill her.

I’m probably lucky she didn’t try to summon a Staada. 😉

As I’ve written before, I’m not usually a two-handed weapons type player. But when I do run with a two-handed weapon, it’s usually a greatsword. So I took that form of the weapon.

I don’t know if I’ll actually use it yet. But I’ll keep it in reserve if I feel like having Finds play with two-handed weapons for a while.

I did find it a bit distracting that it makes weird noises when I wield and sheathe it, though! Apparently its noises are taken from Oblivion? Once I finally get back to running Ganniwer some more I’ll have to keep an ear out for that.

Sorry Sofie, I didn’t mean to not be able to give you a gift

Coming back to Lakeview after getting Shadowrend, I came in the door and immediately had Sofie hit me up for a gift. I’d been carrying some dolls around in my inventory for this express purpose! But I ran into a problem. 🙁

Namely, when I got the UI to try to give her something, I couldn’t actually select the doll!

I’d thought that this was maybe because I was overloaded at the time. But doing a bit of searching, I find that this seems to be a problem specifically with Sofie. If you don’t buy all her flowers in Windhelm prior to adopting her, her inventory can fill up with a bunch of duplicates of her flower baskets in this scenario.

According to her page on the UESP wiki, if you open up the console on PC and then click on Sofie with your mouse pointer, you can use this command to make her drop all the baskets she’s carrying:

drop 000d955a 500

I can confirm that this worked. It made Sofie drop 198 flower baskets! Fortunately they were all stacked, so I only saw one basket, with (198) at the end of its name. So I picked those up, and hopefully this will mean the kid’s inventory is free if she asks me to give her something else again later!

So another playthrough, another bug I’ve never seen before in Skyrim. ;D

The wiki says further that this has been fixed in the USSEP, so that means I could only repro it in an un-modded playthrough. I’m kind of stunned I’ve never seen this before on the Switch, though!

And speaking of bugs in Skyrim

This one was, at least, much less of a problem! I confirmed that I was able to take a room in the Sleeping Giant in Riverwood following Delphine’s departure; Orgnar does now let me rent rooms.

But he also still has his line about having to see Delphine if you want to rent a room, LOL.

Again as per the wiki, this is a known bug and has been fixed in the USSEP. But I’m not actually surprised I never ran into this one on the Switch–just because this far in on a playthrough, it’s very seldom that I bother to actually stop and rent rooms at inns!

Random thief inside the Bee and Barb

This was the second time in Finds’ playthrough where I had a random thief spawn inside a building in Riften! And the first time I’d ever seen one spawn inside the Bee and Barb specifically.

What struck me as really weird about this was that the thief wasn’t actually doing anything except running back and forth, including up and down the stairs from the cellar to the main floor to the top floor, and back again. Nobody in the inn seemed bothered by his presence.

So after helping Shadr with his Sapphire problem, I explored this further to see what if anything I could do about the thief. I discovered he couldn’t be interacted with. So I tried to see if I could nudge him into going outside, on the theory that maybe the guards would go after him then, but that didn’t work.

I did trigger an entirely different thief spawning outside, though. Who the guards did attack. LOL.

Finally decided to drop into sneak and see if I could provoke the guy into attacking the inn patrons by hitting him with a Fury spell. This took a few tries, but I did finally piss him off and that alerted the others in the inn to him. And the end result? Keerava killed him behind her counter.

At which point I looted him! And got the usual loot I get off these randomly spawning thieves.

I will take this as Finds enacting her status as a worshipper of Sithis by enacting a little chaos and change here. 😉 And also relieving the Guild of a dipshit who clearly couldn’t figure out how the hell to rob an inn properly.

And speaking of chaos and change

Finally got into the orphanage and took out Grelod the Kind. Method of execution this time: one shot from the Nightingale Bow.

I’ve been thinking as I run Finds about how many fucks she has to give about the people of Skyrim in general. This far into her playthrough, I feel like she may have a mix of cynicism and more kindly sentiments, all of which play into her feelings about being Dragonborn, too.

She’s certainly had more than enough opportunity to observe that her people generally aren’t well-received in Skyrim, particularly in Windhelm. So a big part of her is not terribly kindly disposed to most Nords. On the other hand, she’s also gone and adopted a couple of human children, and set them up at Lakeview with her housecarls, who seem perfectly fine with their thane being an Argonian woman.

But by and large I suspect that she thinks of this more of herself maybe sponsoring the care of these children, and entrusting Rayya and Lydia to actually raise them properly. Because what the hell does she know about raising human children?

Also connected to this: the whole Dragonborn thing. I feel like that as a worshipper of Sithis, Finds might see Alduin on some level as the ultimate catalyst of change in the world. On the other hand, after reading some about the lore of the Nisswo, I’ve learned a bit about how Argonian society used to see Sithis purely as an agent of destruction. But since then, they’ve shifted more towards the “chaos and change” aspects of him.

I think Finds has spent quite a bit of time at this point ruminating on where exactly she falls on this. And whether she is serving Sithis by opposing Alduin’s attempt to eat the world. I can even tie this a bit into her deciding that if she needs to oppose Alduin, as seems to be the case, than she has to balance this out some by enacting other types of change in the world. Such as, say, adopting a couple of human children and helping them learn directly about her and her people.

Or taking out a clearly incompetent, panicking thief, as well as an abusive mistress of orphans.

And since she learned about Grelod from a kid who was explicitly trying to contact the Dark Brotherhood, I figure she saw this as an opportunity to finally find the Brotherhood and see if her tribe is right, and if she is in fact a potential Shadowscale.

Achievements unlocked

Master: For reaching level 50

Achievements count as of this post: 34.

Language commentary

Interesting terms observed:

Wolkenlose Himmel: Clear Skies (the Shout) (lit. “cloudless sky”)
Hals der Welt: Throat of the World
Seid gegrüßt: Greetings
Feueratem: Fire Breath (the Shout)
Gipfel: Summit/peak
Die alten Zungen: The ancient Tongues
Die ersten sterblichen Beherrscher der Stimme: The first mortal masters of the Voice
Drachenfall-Schrei: Dragonrend (the Shout) (lit. “dragonfall shout”)
Drachensturz-Schrei: Dragonrend (the Shout) (also lit. “dragonfall shout”)
Die Schriftrolle der Alten: The Elder Scroll (lit. “the scroll of the elders”)
Strömungen: Currents
Schöpfung: Creation
Der Zeit-Wunde: The Time-Wound
Instinkten: Instincts
Malachiterzader: Malachite Ore Vein
Ebenerzader: Ebony Ore Vein
Schartige Spitzhacke: Notched Pickaxe
Mehr Platz: Extra Pockets (the Pickpocketing perk) (lit. “more room”)
Heddics Notizen zu Volunruud: Heddic’s Volunruud Notes
Zeremonienaxt: Ceremonial Axe
Zeremonienschwert: Ceremonial Sword
Tür zum Grab des Ältesten: Volunruud Elder’s Cairn (lit. “door to the grave of the elder”)
Auraflüstern: Aura Whisper (the Shout) (lit. “aura whispers”)
Drachenpriesterdolch: Dragon Priest Dagger
Jagdzubehör: Hunting supplies
Im Handumdrehen: In the blink/twinkling of an eye
Aufbrausend: Short-tempered/quick-tempered (used by Quintus to describe Nurelion)
Thalmor-Attentätern: Thalmor assassins
Thalmor-Abschaum: Thalmor scum (used by Ri’saad when I ask him about J’datharr)
Das Schwarze Sakrament: The Black Sacrament
Meuchelmörder: Assassin
Die Heimleiterin: The headmistress
Grelod die Gütige: Grelod the Kind
Assassine: Assassin
Gnadenloser Zombie: One of the zombie types in zombie mobs
Der Atronachenstein: The Atronach Stone
Schattenriss: Shadowrend (the weapon)
Kriechranke: Creep Cluster (lit. “creeping vine”)
Arkane Schmiedeschürze: Arcane Blacksmith’s Apron
Schaut mal: Look (used by Sofie to ask me to look at the gift she found to give me)
Suppulus: Scathecraw
Drelas’ Hütte: Drelas’ Cottage
Alter Drache: Ancient Dragon
Ahnenblutspitze: Eldersblood Peak
Nördlicher Frostfelspass: North Cold Rock Pass
Angelwettkampf: Fishing contest
Ring des Hexenmeisters: Warlock’s Ring
Anwesenheit: Presence (used in Delvin’s reply when you ask him to train you in Sneak, and he says that nobody will see you coming)
Kristallstollenhöhle: Crystaldrift Cave
Waisenhaus Ehrenhall: Honorhall Orphanage
Erkunder der Mythischen Morgenrote: Mythic Dawn Explorer (lit. “explorer of the mythic dawn”)
Bogenwindspitze: Arcwind Point
Lebenskraft entziehen: Drain Vitality (the Shout)
Bjormund Wind-Schreiter: Bjormund Wind-Strider
Alvasorr die Ratte: Alvasorr the Rat
Nervtöter: Nerveshatter (the weapon)
Tyrannenfluch: Tyrant’s Bane (the weapon)
Namiras Biss: Namira’s Itch (the weapon)
Düsteres Gesicht: Dismal Visage (the helm)
Falmerpanzerhandschuhe: Falmer Gauntlets
Falmerrüstung: Falmer Armor
Falmerstiefel: Falmer Boots

I’m a little unsure about the translation of Clear Skies. In Arngeir’s dialogue he calls it “Wolkenloser Himmel”, but in my Shouts list, it shows as “Wolkenlose”. So I’m not sure if this was an active translation error in one of these two places, or just a typo. Either could be true! But for purposes of my list I’ll go with “Wolkenlose Himmel”, since that’s the one that shows up in the Shouts menu.

There appeared to be a translation inconsistency with Dragonrend, though. In my question to Paarthurnax to get him to confirm that the ancient Tongues defeated Alduin with Dragonrend, the line I had used the phrase “Drachenfall-Schrei”. But in that very same conversation, Paathurnax’s answer contained the phrase “Drachensturz-Schrei”. Both of these essentially mean “Dragonfall Shout”. But I would definitely call this an inconsistency rather than just a typo, since “fall” and “sturz” are both legit German words. And they are synonyms, so either of them would seem appropriate to use here assuming that the translation intention was to use “Dragonfall” as the name of the Shout, rather than “Dragonrend”. But I’d expect the translator to pick one and go with it. And if I’d been QA’ing this build, I definitely would have filed a bug against that.

Now, calling the Shout “Dragonfall” rather than “Dragonrend” is a separate question. I don’t think it’s a bad translation decision, necessarily. The translation I find for the verb “to rend” is “zerreißen“, and I’m legit unsure how you’d use that to get the original English intention of “Dragonrend”. “Drachenzerreiß” might work. But it’s also a bit longer and has less of a punch to it than “Dragonfall”. So for rhythm of language purposes alone, I’m fine with “Dragonfall”.

Just, again, pick either “Drachenfall” or “Drachensturz”, and stick with the choice!

One more thing about this, though: later on in these sessions, I picked up the weapon Shadowrend, which was translated to “Schattenriss”. And that suggests that they could have used “Drachenriss” as the name for the Shout. That would be nice and concise! But it doesn’t surprise me that there’s still a translation inconsistency here, just because the Creation Club content did come much later than the base game.

In another line from Paarthurnax later in the conversation, I saw him use “Drachensturz” again. Which suggests that that’s probably intended to be the official translation. Once I bring the Elder Scroll back to the Throat of the World and actually learn Dragonrend, I’ll need to check Finds’ Shouts menu and see how the Shout is listed there. And any further occurrences of it in dialogue as well. (Dang, I forgot to check what Arngeir called it in his dialogue!)

I only just managed, as of these two sessions, to catch the translation of Belethor’s line about how if he had a sister, he’d sell her in a second:

“Wenn ich eine Schwester hätte, würde ich sie Euch im Handumdrehen verkaufen.”

Apparently “im Handumdrehen” is a German idiom meaning “in the twinkling/blink of an eye”. The part that interests me here is if you break “Handumdrehen” down, you get “Hand” (which means the same in German as in English), and “umdrehen”, “to turn over”. Which suggests to me that a more literal interpretation of this would be “in the turn of a hand”! But it’s a cool idiom to know nonetheless.

This is too long to give in the list above, but here’s the full German translation of the Black Sacrament as uttered by Aventus Aretino:

“Liebe Mutter, liebe Mutter, sendet mir Euer Kind, denn die Sünden der Unwürdigen müssen in Blut und Furcht getauft werden.”

Pretty much a direct translation, according to Google Translate, which translates it back to English as:

“Dear mother, dear mother, send me your child, for the sins of the unworthy must be baptized in blood and fear.”

Aventus calls me a “Meuchelmörder”, though I suppose technically Finds ought to be a “Meuchelmörderin”, given that German does use gendered nouns?

By my count I have three different words used for “assassin”, all throughout running the plots to take out the Thalmor assassin for Malborn, and when taking Aventus’ contract to kill Grelod. Unlike my complaint about translation inconsistencies for Dragonrend, I’m more okay with this. Because “assassin” is not a proper noun, and I’m fine with characters using synonyms that mean the same thing. It helps vary up the dialogue some.

I could not find a confirmation of which type of zombie a “Gnadenloser Zombie” is. The German translated version of the Elder Scrolls Wiki doesn’t have a page for this. My best guess though is “Relentless Zombie”, since that’s the highest tier type of zombie in zombie mobs. And “Gnadenloser Zombie” translates to “Merciless Zombie”, which seems like a close enough match to “Relentless”.

I got a whole bunch nothin’ re: how you get “Suppulus” for the German translation of “Scathecraw”. All of my searches to try to find info on this word are on Elder-Scrolls-specific sites. So I have nothing to go on to try to figure out this translation!

Here’s another quote I’ll call out in full. This is what Brutius told me when I offered him a 1,000 gold bet for the fishing contest:

“Etwas Gold macht die Sache gleich viel attraktiver.”

In English, his line in this scenario is “A little coin always greases the wheels.”

The German translates back to, roughly, “A little gold makes things much more attractive.” Generally the same idea even if it’s not a direct translation. So again it seems idiomatic.

Next time

Finds-The-Way’s next post is going to feature finishing up running The Cause, by hitting both Rielle and Red Scar Cavern; talking to Septimus Signus for the first time, and getting the quest to go to Alftand; fighting the mudcrabs at Dawnstar; running the special job to get Windhelm under control of the Thieves Guild; running Silverdrift Lair; and last but not least, getting kidnapped by the Dark Brotherhood! And invited to join them!

About goddamn time, says the aspiring Shadowscale!