In Which Marwyth Gains a Companion and Saves Fort Amol

Last post of 2023 content for Marwyth’s playthrough on ESO. This is for the final few days in December, and features a bunch of action all over the place: New Life Festival, moving the plot along in Eastmarch, picking up Ember as Marwyth’s first Companion, and more!

Play by play

Play dates: 12/27-12/28, 12/30-12/31/2023
Session numbers in this run: 77-80

December 27th

Ran some Woodworking surveys to try to get more heartwood for writs, one in the Alik’r Desert and one in Grahtwood
Fought at a couple of dolmens while doing that
Ran New Life events in Bergama and Auridon

December 28th

New Life events again: did mud balls in Skywatch, and Old Life shrine in Reaper’s March
Hit two different dolmens in Reaper’s March as well
Got third and final piece of the Hoardhunter Ursauk mount (bear go RAR) \0/

December 30th

Added more space to Marwyth’s inventory, but maxed her out with the pack merchant, leaving remaining increases for riding lessons
Hit the New Life event again
Got the lockpicking quest again and it took me two times to run that
Old Life shrine was in Bangkorai, and found that pretty quickly
Derped around Summerset briefly to explore and try to farm heartwood
Also went back to Leyawiin to find Tertia Falto, and tell her her fiancé was dead
Ran the quest to pick up Ember as a Companion, so that Marwyth can also have access to her
After getting Ember, spent a little time wandering around High Isle just to try to farm enough heartwood to finish up the deep winter writ I was working on
Did a bit more random exploring and picked up another skyshard, which gave me a skill point
Came across a side quest involving a druid
Helped him out by capturing various insects at volcanic vents so he could figure out what’s going on with them
The last one actually got out of his control and I had to fight a bunch of flame-based hostiles, which was a good strong crunchy fight!
Druid concluded somebody was trying to magically jumpstart the volcano, and decided he was going to have to investigate this further
But for the moment he gave me a quest reward for helping him
Did a bunch of running around Vvardenfell to try to farm heartwood
Hit a couple of skyshards and picked up a second skill point
Finally found the Urshilaku camp, and got the quest to help out the Ashlander tribes
This required me to go to Ald’ruhn and speak with a specific Ashlander, who encouraged me to speak with representatives of the other tribes and help them out
Ran a quest to recover relics from a Daedric ruin (Ashurnabitashpi) that bandits had taken over, which required me to kill a bunch of bandits
Then hunted a big nasty nix-hound
Reported back to Ald’ruhn to turn those quests in
Discovered to my surprise that I can use any outfit style on Marwyth that Gyllerah has unlocked!
So spent time making Marwyth an Outlaw-style light armor outfit, basically replicating the Thieves Guild costume, but this is something I can actually put dye colors on
Took several tries before I found a color set that I like with Marwyth’s rotmeth hairdo and the Eyes of the Prophet, since both of those put blue into her appearance, and I wanted something that worked with that

December 31st

Boinged off to Eastmarch to move the Ebonheart Pact quest line further along
Went back to Fort Morvunskar to put the relics back
Killed assorted draugr while doing this, and was guided along by the queen’s ghost
Kept expecting her to turn out to be some kind of imposter, but she seems so far to be legit
And also: her brother stole her body! Gasp!
The queen told me to keep her amulet though after I returned the first two relics
Talked to the captain on the way out to finish up the quest
Then talked to a lieutenant and got the word to proceed to Fort Amol; needed to deliver a dispatch to a thane there
Showed up and found the scene at the bridge I’d seen before as Gyllerah, Dark Elves talking to a guard who won’t let them stay at the inn
But this time, being a Dark Elf (and also actually playing the plot), I asked the guy WTF
Learned that the king’s party was in town and there were apparently important meetings going on
Went in to try to find out more, and found a commander looking for one of his men
Commander wouldn’t fork over info until I promised to find the missing man
Headed off to do so and found him talking in his sleep at the side of the river, near some bottles of suspicious Argonian ‘wine’
And also, he kept babbling about being in love with… wait for it… Naryu! 😉
Swiped the guy’s uniform (this is what he gets for babbling about Naryu)
Went back to try to find the commander, but found he’d gone off elsewhere and I couldn’t get to him
Found another officer who kept going ‘oh you just missed him’
Finally found a lord who told me he thought the commander was acting suspicious
So I trailed after the guy (thank you, invisibility potion and Nightblade hiding), and overheard him and the other officer having a conversation that indicated they were clearly committing some shenanigans
Went and broke into the other officer’s house; found dead bodies in there of people that were apparently being duplicated so that they could infiltrate the king’s party
Tried to report this to one of the thanes, only to have him go ‘oh shit this is serious, but we cannot be obvious about it’
While doing that also reported to the thane I had to bring the dispatch to
First thane was concerned about the Dark Elf and Argonian delegations being blown off by the king’s son, so I had to go to both of those camps and convince them to report back to the council
Visiting the Dark Elf camp let me find Naryu, who was undercover as a servant trying to get closer to her target
With her help, snuck into the guards barracks to steal some Dunmer wine so she could use that to hit up the guy she was allegedly “serving” for more information
And that was enough to get him back to the council
Meanwhile the Argonians wanted me to go kill a troll for them, since their settlement at Darkwater Crossing had been overrun by trolls (sidebar: hey I know that place from Skyrim too!)
Went over there and found the troll to kill
Returned to the Argonians and gave them the troll’s head, which got them to return to the council
Reported back to the thane I’d talked to, and he sent me and the lord I’d been working with over to report to the keep
Only, shocker, the lord turned out to also be a duplicate, who then tried to kill me
Except Naryu showed up and stabbed him to death!
Complimented Naryu on her dress! 😉 She got a bit charmingly sheepish about it
Naryu and I got into the keep
Killed a few Stormfist hostiles until I got the key to the Jarl’s manor
Once in there I found the main hostile: Dhalen, a Breton illusionist who was trying to pretend to be the king
Took out the false commanders and then took out Dhalen as well
Got into the vault where Jorunn was unconscious from a poison, but under guard by a friendly Dark Elf and a friendly Argonian
Went out to get help for Jorunn
Found Naryu again and determined that I had in fact killed her target (Dhalen) for her; she said she had to hurry off to Mournhold though
This left me to report to the king’s son downstairs to finish the quest
Then spoke to the thane I’d given the dispatch to; she said we’d need to seek the help of some monks to heal the king
So I left off with that, and for now boinged back to Cliffshade
Spent some time gathering the new gear made as Gyllerah, and once I had enough of it, took Marwyth out again to try it out
Also twiddled Marwyth’s skill bars a bit to get them closer to the build I’d found that I wanted to try
Saved out an official second build for her on the Armory Station
Summoned Ember for backup to give her more XP and because I figured Marwyth would like her a LOT 😀
Boinged to Vivec City and picked up a daily quest for a delve; chosen delve was Khartag Point
Got pointer to speak with someone in the Saint Delyn canton before I left
He told me the goal was to identify slaver activity and take out a specific known slaver there
Khartag Point was west-ish of Balmora, but I came in from the north
Cut through some Red Exile territory by accident, and mostly evaded all the Red Exiles
Then finally reached the smuggler lair, and picked up the local quest after speaking to an Orc lurking about
He told me he was part of a group led by Khartag the Orc who were smuggling slaves out of Morrowind to get them to freedom on the mainland
And just like that Marwyth was all right then, whose slaver ass do I need to kick?
He asked me to track down a few specific named slaves as well as Khartag himself
Headed in to run the place
One of the the slaves was already dead, but I found the other two and encouraged them to GTFO
Killed assorted dreugh and assorted Camonna Tong
Found Khartag, but he’d been stabbed by a poison blade and urged me to take word of what had happened to the Orc I’d spoken to outside; then he died
Found assorted bits of notes as evidence of the slaver activity
Found the skyshard and triggered that, which got me another skill point
Decided I was very pleased with some new attacks on the skill bars, and the increased damage output from the gear
Took out a couple of different bosses in the delve, Old Rust-Eye the dreugh who was the official delve boss, but also Avrusa Duleri as per the daily quest
Then finally reported back to Vivec City to check in with Vorar Vendu and conclude the quest
Nice solid delve, and Marwyth approves of kicking slavers’ asses 😀
Also note: forget where this happened, maybe in Vivec City, maybe in Windhelm, but I went by a Mages Guild and had Shalidor ping me with the pointer to go talk to Valaste for more Mages Guild action–namely: the Circus of Cheerful Slaughter!

Surprisingly informative messenger quest

So I’ve done a few different little side quests at this point where I see some poor NPC die, or otherwise discover that they’re dead, and have to deliver word of the death to a loved one somewhere.

But doing so for Tertia Falto was a little out of the ordinary! First there was Tertia giving me the backstory on her dead fiancé–i.e., that he wasn’t really a werewolf, he’d just gotten stoned out of his gourd on Argonian medicine. And then there was her lamenting at me about how she’s had a hell of a run with several bad engagements, and this one at least had the distinguishing factor of the guy running off on her specifically because he loved her.

I can just imagine Marwyth looking flummoxed by this infodump, blurting “Ah… well, sorry?”, and then getting the hell away as fast she could after Tertia gave her a sash as a quest reward. LOL.

Props to whatever game writer set up the dialogue for this little interaction, that was hilarious. Particularly this quote of Tertia’s, which packs a huge amount of backstory into a single sentence:

“I was once kidnapped by a crazed Sul-Xan warlord and offered the heads of my neighbors as a dowry.”

Ember joins Team Marwyth

First thing I want to touch on here is that these are the sessions during which I picked up Ember as Marwyth’s first Companion. And I did have an easier time with it this time, since I knew what to look for from having run the plot as Gyllerah. The main bumpy bit I had with it before, dealing with the enchanted animals, gave me no issues this time through.

And now that I’ve started getting the various Companion characters for my alts as well as my main, I can say with certainty that Ember so far seems to be the best match for Marwyth in terms of background and personality. Particularly the part where Ember finds thievery exciting. Muahaha.

Once I got Ember, I also did a little bit of side questing on High Isle that gave me at least some hint of the zone plot going on there: i.e., a druid investigating what was going on with volcanic vents, and discovering that somebody was deliberately trying to magically provoke the volcano. I really ought to get around to running High Isle’s main plot, eventually!

She may be stabby, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to help

Next thing of note: taking Marwyth to Vvardenfell and running a bit of the side questing that helps the Ashlander tribes. This seemed very appropriate and in character for her, touching on both her own Ashlander background as well as having more of a hero streak than she’d like to admit. I need to do more of this, in no small part so’s I can try to hit treasure chests on Vvardenfell and see if I can get Buoyant Armiger style pages. I have more gold at my disposal now that I’m actively selling with guild traders (more on this to come in a future post), but still, the Buoyant Armiger style pages are expensive.

Fancy meeting you here, Naryu!

Third thing: doing more Ebonheart Pact action, at Fort Amol in Eastmarch. And what made Marwyth sit up and take notice, especially after the events of Marwyth’s previous post, was coming across Naryu again.

Was Marwyth feeling territorial finding a drunken guard babbling about loving Naryu in his sleep? Yes. Yes, she was. ;D

Running the Ebonheart action taught me that apparently, the way I need to deal with any plot that wants me to trail somebody without being observed is to have a boatload of invisibility potions available. Which is why Gyllerah, as my character with all the crafting skills maxed out, now makes invisibility potions for all of my alts every time I get a chance. With those potions at my disposal, I had a much easier time following the commander and spying on his illicit conversation than I’ve had with similar stealth tasks in prior sessions.

Overall though I’m not sure if I really bought the plot in effect in Fort Amol. I didn’t really see the point of having a Breton illusionist impersonating Jorunn, when Jorunn’s brother Fildgor had been set up as believing he should be the rightful king. So why go to the trouble of having Dhalen impersonate Jorunn at all?

Checking the wiki, I see that Dhalen’s page says this guy was an assassin explicitly hired by the Stormfists to poison Jorunn. So again, what was the point of actually impersonating him, even briefly? I get the idea of the Stormfists sowing discord in Fort Amol, that’s politically useful to Fildgor.

But Dhalen being a skilled enough illusionist to make himself appear as Jorunn, and presumably also masterminding making half a dozen other people in the town be able to impersonate others without being detected, strikes me as dangerous for Fildgor’s efforts. What was to stop Dhalen from impersonating Fildgor himself and just taking over Eastmarch?

Well, obviously, the Vestige, with significant help from Naryu. ;D

Still though, unless Fildgor was planning on some sort of wide intrigue to pay Dhalen to impersonate Jorunn for a while and deliberately piss off the people of Eastmarch so they’d actively welcome Fildgor as their new ruler, I don’t see what the end game here was supposed to be.

But ah well, two very stabby Dunmer babes put a stop to the shenanigans, regardless! So this is all moot to speculate about, really.

Khartag Point delve

Last thing: I quite enjoyed running Khartag Point on Vvardenfell. This was a good solid delve in general, but it specifically having a plot involving kicking slaver asses was particularly appropriate for Marwyth’s overall background, and her being anti-slavery. A++, will run this again with the other characters when I get a chance!

And I need to run more of the delves on Vvardenfell, as well. I’m seeing Marwyth’s hero streak rising up and making her want to do more things for the people of Vvardenfell in general. Not only because of Azura basically point blank commanding her to look out for Vvardenfell’s best interests by helping the Tribunal… but also because of her experiences with the Scarlet Judge. Marwyth’s still not entirely comfortable any time she sets foot back in Morrowind. But of all the various Morrowind regions, Vvardenfell so far may be the one most likely for her to settle in.

Next time

Bringing Marwyth’s playthrough posts into 2024 finally, with more Ebonheart Pact action, and a bit of delve and group action as well!