In Which Kendeshel Gets Married and Fights Pirates

Back around to Skyrim now, as I’m finally in 2024 as I work through my backlog of playthrough posts. This one is for Kendeshel’s run, in early January, and features assorted side questing–and Kendeshel getting married to Rulnik Wind-Strider! And it’s a double session post because the session I did on the 5th was quite short.

Play by play

Play dates: 1/5-1/6/2024
Session numbers in this run: 36-37

January 5th

Picked up again at the Safehouse, and did a bit of inventory managing
Leveled up to 59; took Health bump, I think? And dropped a perk point on Ebony smithing
Then headed down into the sewers to take on Thoron
Cleared the place pretty well, and pretty quickly
Got all the usual loot and got out again, and got courier with the request to go meet Staada
But first headed back to the museum for inventory checking
Got up the next morning and then went over to meet Staada
Got a Revered Dragon while out doing that, so had to take that out just outside the Solitude gates
And while meeting Staada, got a trio of pissed off Seducers bandits
Returned to Solitude after that
Took the Dev Aveza down to Whiterun to find Ri’saad and resolve the Saints and Seducers overall quest with him
Got a second courier on board the airship when I came in, with the note about Ri’saad’s new wares
Ri’saad’s caravan was taking its sweet time to come in, so spent a little time in Whiterun with the girls, and also selling stuff
Next stop: Riften! Because hey kids, what do you think of Rulnik as your new father?
Did the Amulet of Mara thing, hey Rulnik, like my amulet?
YAY WE GOT MARRIED
The kids showed up at the wedding, and so did Snilf the beggar
Told Rulnik we’d live in Solitude so I could officially move him, the girls, and the dog into Proudspire Manor and give Lydia some breathing room
Returned to Solitude
Checked Proudspire and found Rulnik and Meeko there, but no sign of the girls yet
Was going to take the airship out to see if the girls were still stuck at Whiterun or something–but another Revered Dragon showed up in the cell that contains the Dev Aveza dock
Since Rulnik had stood down as my follower once he became my househusband, I was by myself and did not want to fight the dragon by the Dev Aveza
So I ran back out into the city, but the dragon kept not landing
Found both Lucia and Sofie out and about in the city, so was able to confirm that they’d safely arrived in Solitude
Ran outside the gates, and then the dragon landed
Also got weird comment from a guard when I came through the gates with my weapons drawn; he yelled something like stop or face the Jarl’s justice, but didn’t actually arrest me or anything?
HOLD ON THERE SPARKY KINDA BUSY KILLING THE DRAGON HERE
Finally took it out and saw that a whole mess of Imperial guys had come out to fight it with me
Last major action of the session was to head over to officially claim Dead Man’s Dread just to clear that out of my journal
Killed a few random hostiles on the way, one cranky random Imperial, and also some Golden Saint bandits
Bandit camp by the boat had respawned, so I had to clear out those bandits too
But otherwise took possession of Dead Man’s Dread, and found the map to let me fast travel right back to Solitude
Did more display and inventory managing at the Safehouse
Display count reached: 1122
Saved there until next time

January 6th

Did a bit of extra Kendeshel since the previous session was short
Picked up again at the Safehouse, but slept at Proudspire for the family bonuses
Boinged to Dawnstar to visit the inn and find those pirates
Talked to their leader and brawled with him, to make him fess up to where the Blood Horkers were hiding
Came out of there to immediately find a snowy sabre cat, who killed poor NPC Abelone before I had a chance to do anything about it
Faelor the wolf and an Imperial guard took out the sabre cat, but RIP Abelone
Headed back to Windhelm to report in to Orthus about the Blood Horkers
East Empire lackey handed me off to Adelaisa, who was immediately all “You’re coming with us for the assault, no arguments”
Which—kinda abrupt, wot? LOL, see below
As per first time I ran this plot, it was not terribly complicated
Cleared Japhet’s Folly’s interior pretty quickly
Threw one daedroth around to take out hostiles, including Haldyn the mage, who I note was wearing Ritual Boethiah armor and boots, from Immersive Armors
Exited the tower and started throwing Golden Saint warriors around to fight the exterior horkers
Reached Adelaisa and she was all ‘fuck yeah we did it’
Returned to Windhelm, but it was late so I couldn’t report back to Orthus
Slept at Hjerim, so HI CALDER! Everything still okay in my house? Good
Then reported to Orthus in the morning to resolve the quest
Did not find anything interesting for Legacy display purposes running this plot, but according to the wiki there was a jade thing to get that I missed, oh wells
From Windhelm, took the airship to the College of Winterhold
Made myself a waterbreathing ring at the enchanter table on the airship
Got in fairly late so slept in Arch-Mage’s quarters
Took training in the morning and made good headway on level 59
Went out from there on foot with wolf to go find the ring for the Arms of Chaos plot
Used the ring to go diving and retrieve the ring from the shipwreck site
Then headed over to the ritual spot to call up the dremora and get the sigil stones
This went very quickly with my dremora squad summoned
Then fast traveled back to Winterhold, and took the Dev Aveza back to Solitude
Made the Warlock’s Mark and the two staves right in the Safehouse, since I do have a staff enchanter there
Then placed all three items along with the ring on display in the Hall of Wonders
Made replicas of the three sigil stones out of my gem stock, and placed those on display too
Saved until next time

Commentary

This was arguably the easiest I’ve ever run the Solitude sewers climax of the Saints & Seducers plot, whee! Being able to summon three storm atronachs at once meant I could blast pretty quickly through all of Thoron’s summoned Golden Saints and Dark Seducers, and get to him directly to take him down fast.

So again, for all the objections I have to Project AHO’s plot, mad props to the extra summoning skill helping me out here.

I want it noted for the record that narrative-wise, given that Kendeshel has a frigging airship at her disposal, it would make no sense whatsoever to make Rulnik and the girls take the cart from Riften. She would have flown them all to Solitude to settle in. And I am officially calling that as what happened, never mind that it took a bit for the girls to show up in the city after Kendeshel and Rulnik got married and the family moved there!

My session on January 5th was another dragon-heavy session in Solitude, with the second one in particular once again displaying the behavior of spawning in the cell that contains the Dev Aveza dock. It’s not clear to me whether that cell is considered part of Solitude’s worldspace or not, given that I haven’t been able to find it yet in xEdit. But any time I’ve seen a dragon spawn there, I’ve never been able to actually kill it in that cell. It’s always required a zone change so I can get back into the city proper. At which point I’ve usually been able to kill the dragon in the streets. Or in this specific example, just outside the gates.

That the second dragon landed outside the city in particular was at least an interesting variation on the theme. This suggests that the dragon in these scenarios has its code trying to dictate where it’s going to land, either inside the city or just outside of it.

And come to think of it, this isn’t the only scenario in which I’ve seen a dragon change zones like this on me, either. Because there was that dragon I started fighting near Kynesgrove and wound up killing inside Windhelm, too. I don’t know enough about the underlying code driving the dragons to know for sure what’s going on here, but it certainly seems related on first glance.

This was only the second time through for me playing the East Empire Company plot in Windhelm. I remembered not punching the pirates in the Dawnstar inn before, so I made a point of doing so this time, when I brawled with the leader. This is what you get for harassing the bard, asshole! *POW*

Finally meeting Adelaisa, and having her go straight to “you’re coming with us for the assault, no arguments”, seemed like an awfully impulsive decision for somebody who just met me. Not to mention Kendeshel herself being an Imperial officer. So I imagine this conversation playing out:

Adelaisa: “Finally, someone around here that can get things done. Since we’re short on soldiers you’ll be coming with us, too. No arguments. Anything else you want to say?”

Kendeshel: “Yes. Just so we’re clear, you’re wearing Imperial armor, but I do not remember you. Were you with our forces when we took Windhelm? And if so, on whose authority are you issuing orders to a Legate?”

Adelaisa, blinking: “Oh. Oh. Divines, I’m sorry, I should have recognized… You’re her. The one who was with General Tullius and Legate Rikke when–“

Kendeshel: “Yes. When we executed Ulfric Stormcloak. Question stands. You’re ordering me on what authority?”

Adelaisa: “Ahem. Er. Let me rephrase. Given the situation and your experience in the field, I would very much appreciate your assistance in the assault on Japhet’s Folly. Will you come with us?”

Kendeshel, satisfied: “Thank you. I happen to agree with your tactical assessment, and I can help you, so yes, I’ll come. Let’s do this.”

I’m a little chagrined that I missed the jade statuette in Japhet’s Folly, though. But I charged through there so fast, focused on finding enemies to kill, that I clean forgot to actually search the place in serious detail. Ah well, a goal for the next time I run a Legacy playthrough!

Last but not least, this post marks Kendeshel’s marrying Rulnik Wind-Strider. Given that Kendeshel is essentially take two of my Kendis run, and Kendis did marry Rulnik, it seemed appropriate!

Plus, I wanted to be able to move the girls to Solitude, for previously expressed family security reasons. And I did need to marry somebody to do that.

So now Rulnik, the girls, and Meeko the dog are all living at Proudspire Manor, with Jordis the Shield-Maiden to guard them. Narrative-wise I should actually move them into the Safehouse, because there’s plenty of room in there–but I hadn’t set this run up with the appropriate plugins to house a family there.

I will take the liberty of assuming, though, that Kendeshel got Auryen’s permission to let her family have free rein of the museum. And I definitely imagine Rulnik and the girls spending a lot of time in there, learning all about not only Kendeshel’s specific adventures, but all the other interesting artifacts coming into the museum in general.

Next time

Kendeshel’s next post will feature a session in late January, since I had a bit of an involuntary hiatus what with Bethesda dropping a second recent Skyrim update. Main highlights will be Legacy-related side questing, taking out the vampires in Morthal and getting the pointer to work for thaneship in Hjaalmarch… and yet more dragon attacks in Solitude, this time costing me another named NPC.