In Which Gyllerah is Named the Champion of Anequina

This post is what, four months late? Fpbptpt, I am super behind still on getting these playthrough posts written up! But regardless, here’s one for Gyllerah from back in mid-January, featuring finishing up the plot for Northern Elsweyr. And a heaping side helping of delves and public dungeons and dailies and companion quest action!

Play by play

Play dates: 1/11-1/14/2024
Session numbers in this run: 331-334

January 11th

Did a round of Fighters Guild, Mages Guild, and Undaunted dailies with Ember as backup
Fighters Guild sent me to take out a dolmen in Stormhaven
Mages Guild wanted me to recover a Sheogorath artifact out of a dungeon in Auridon
Toothmaul Gully public dungeon was not quite as large as the one in the Rift
But once again I got stacked quests
The local quest was the Veiled Heritance trying to make a deal with goblins to use them as ground troops in exchange for weapons
Managed to get the chief to back off after meeting a follower of his who spoke very basic Tamrielic
Also got the main Veiled Heritance person, Nelanya, to back off because she was clever enough to realize that she would not win this
Also hit a side plot involving a captured Khajiiti arms smuggler, Jilan-dar, who offered to give me a cut if I recovered his weapons caches for him
The Undaunted wanted me to go to Wormroot Depths (LOL, third time I’ve been there), recover four Ayleid verses, and take out a particular hostile
Did all of these with Ember because I knew she’d get a Rapport boost off of the Mages Guild in particular–and she did 😀
This let me unlock Ember’s first quest, and get more of her backstory about growing up a street kid in Skywatch
Did a couple rounds in the Archive but still wasn’t able to get past the boss of cycle number 4
Then worked a lot on changing my Solo build to take on the Archive
Found a solo Templar build I wanted to try on alcasthq.com, see below
Spent some surveys to work on getting runes for the enchantment glyphs, in Glenumbra, Reaper’s March, and Apocrypha (this survey was right near the Archive, in fact)
Also spent a clothier survey in Stormhaven, near Firebrand Keep
Built all the gear
Since this new build involved a two-handed sword, spent some time on RP just to give myself a chance to level the Two Handed skill
Ran the rest of the kidnapping plot in Riverhold with Mirri as backup
This had a part where I had to break into somebody’s house to search for evidence, so I did an emergency character swap to get some of Marwyth’s stock of invisibility potions, and a Counterfeit Scroll of Pardon since I didn’t feel like dealing with a trespassing bounty
I did get spotted, but no harm done
The Khajiit whose daughter we were in theory trying to find actually had regular cats in his house and this seemed really rather weird XD
The plot involved his missing daughter of course turning out to be the leader of a local smuggling ring
Ended the plot with her capture and getting the quest reward from Mizzik
Blipped to Alinor to rearrange a couple of morphs on my skills to better work with the new build
Turned off Mirri for a bit, then did a harvesting run around Alinor just to practice Two-handed some more
Then picked up Mirri again and returned to Northern Elsweyr, this time to run more of the main plot there, and that was crunchy
I particularly liked seeing Cadwell the Betrayer finally reassembled, even though it damn near wiped out Soul-Shriven Cadwell
The Betrayer was a pretty crunchy fight, too (Cadwell doesn’t lie when he says he’s a skilled swordsman!)
Even crunchier fight: taking on Mulaamnir once we reached the Plane of Jode to stop the dragons from taking power from an eclipse
Got a third skyshard while running this plot, which let me unlock one of the skills under Two-handed that I needed for my bar, and slotting that let me start leveling it faster, so I got up over 20 while running this plot
Picked up another skill point once we all returned safely to the palace in Rimmen, so was able to unlock the other skill I needed for my bar
Still needed a few more skill points to unlock passives and morphs, so the build wasn’t quite ready yet, but it let Gyllerah do damage comparable to Marwyth

Addendum for January 11th, as of April 15th

Not sure when this happened but I have a screenshot that says I talked to Tasnasi in the Stitches; did not however take her quest

January 12th

Finished off the Northern Elsweyr plot! Which didn’t take long, just had to have a few final conversations with assorted NPCs
Witnessed Khamira’s official coronation as queen of Rimmen, and she publicly proclaimed me Champion of Anequina <3
Tried to proceed with the plot in the Imperial City to report to General Nedras, but this went badly as I am not good at PVP, so I bailed on that whole quest
Did a round of dailies again with the guilds, with Ember as backup, to bump her rapport with me
Fighters Guild sent me to Rivenspire for dolmen destruction
I hit the Westmark Moor Dolmen, and while there, fought and killed Nedras the Sly
He left behind a journal, which I then took to his ailing sister in Northsalt Village in the north of Rivenspire
Mages Guild sent me to a public dungeon in Bangkorai, and that one was a Dwemer ruin, which was fun
Undaunted sent me to Malabal Tor to set some spirit traps in a delve, Shael Ruins, and take out a known baddie there
Tried the Archive some more, but still didn’t make it past cycle number four
Also tried a side quest involving having to duel a Wood Elf, Aramril, who kicked my ass
Spent time leveling Gyllerah’s current DPS build
Went skyshard hunting to rack up skill points, on High Isle and in Greenshade
Ran the delve right near Cliffshade, Gurzag’s Mine, which turned out to be a mine full of dead Orcs, and I did not like the quest that explained why
High Isle went better; picked up two skill points running stuff there
Ran a delve, Shipwreck Shoals, where I needed to help a Dominion spy rescue his fellow operative who happened to also be his sister
Had to recover important intelligence documents as well
And boy howdy was the sister not pleased that the brother didn’t risk himself to come in after her himself
Ran a few antiquities on Galen and High Isle; picked up a third piece of the Stormweaver’s Cavort mythic, another piece of the Druidic Provisioning table, and a Sea Elf Galleon Helm
Last but not least ran the first stage of Mirri’s personal quest line, which involved rescuing her mother Irenni from the Inner Sea Armature delve in Stonefalls
Irenni was on a quest to recover her father’s lost Dwemer puzzle box, which had apparently been his greatest possession until he lost it, and he died obsessed with trying to get it back
This was driving Mirri crazy because her mother was doing the same damn thing and putting herself at risk
Convinced Irenni to stand down and go home (subtext: probably for now, LOL)
Mirri gave me a couple of treasure maps to run <3

January 13th

Joined a second guild, St. Blackwood, to have regular access to a guild trader and sell stuff! And so far this appears to be profitable <3
Did a round of fishing and harvesting on Artaeum
Did a round of dailies with Ember as backup
Tried one round of Infinite Archive, still having trouble cracking past cycle number 4
Ran more of the Eastmarch plot to get opportunities for skill points
Ran everything in that arc starting from Windhelm and playing through to clearing Fort Amol
Also, since Marwyth didn’t do it and Gyllerah needed it for Cadwell’s Silver, I did the side plot with the giants at Cradlecrush, and that was fun 😀
After that, did run through Fort Amol
HI NARYU <3
Paused Gyllerah’s run through Eastmarch there and flipped over to Marwyth

January 14th

Did a round of dailies with Mirri as backup
Fighters Guild: Bangkorai, hit the delve near Halcyon Lake, Troll’s Toothpick
Also got a skyshard nearby
Mages Guild: hit the Hall of the Dead in Windhelm, which I’d run already as Marwyth, so didn’t bother to do the plot with the treacherous mage
But did get the skyshard and killed a few of the bosses, so got new achievements, and got a skill point off killing the main boss in there
Also ran the side plot with the lost revelers
Undaunted: hit the Corpse Garden Delve in Deshaan, which I’d also already run before as Marwyth, and got the skyshard
Killed a boss in there and placed some ancestor wards
Mirri leveled up and unlocked another skill slot 😀
Dropped both skill points on High Elf abilities to bump up Gyllerah’s damage
Ran Sunhold public dungeon on Summerset since I hadn’t been in there before, and I know now that I can run a public dungeon just fine with a Companion at this point, so went in there with Mirri as backup
Local plot was Sunhold getting taken over by the Maormer, and I had to help the local Kinlady by saving several chained citizens and destroying Maormer supplies
Killed assorted bosses, including the one who tried to take the Kinlady prisoner
Got a couple of pieces of the Psijic Glowglobe emote as well, and the skyshard!
Ran a side plot in Greenshade, at a spot very near to Marbruk, just because there was a skyshard there I wanted
Had to help a clan of Bosmer, the Driladan, who were being attacked by the Hollow creatures I’d seen before, who were apparently very cranky about them settling in that spot
Their watchman claimed that all of Valenwood would be in danger if they settled there–which seemed rather over the top
I had to choose between convincing the Bosmer to move and convincing the watchman to back the fuck off
I chose in favor of the Bosmer and had to kill the watchman
The Driladan clan were happy to be able to claim the spot for settling, but also decided maybe they should go petition the Wilderking about this (news bulletin, you lot: it’s a WilderQUEEN now, maybe you missed the memo?)
But I did at least get the skyshard!
Ran a bit more of the Necrom plot, and went to Necrom to meet up with Leramil
Found her with the curate, hanging out chatting
And she dropped hints a couple of times that she is totally into him, though she said it very understatedly, just that she found him “intriguing” and “interesting”, LOL
Gave her a report about what happened before, and she gave me a skill point and a ring for the reward for that part of the quest line
She also asked me to meet her in Apocrypha, so I headed through a portal out of the bindery and into that realm
However, got distracted by a side quest!
A skaafin, Hezekh, was bitching about having been robbed and having a secret stolen from him
Agreed to help him, and had to gather four bits of stuff in the vicinity of the Ravening Morass
Then went into the Obscured Forum to help Hezekh recover his lost secret, and killed a bunch of hostiles
Hezekh had me gather components for a spell to track the secret’s location, which took a few tries, because he wasn’t the best spellcaster in the world
But we finally found the secret in question, and had to deposit it in the Intake Maw, which accepted the secret and provided a boon of Mora–and then the Maw actually read the secret out loud
Surprise! Madam Whim actually thinks Hezekh is her most valuable servant!
Hezekh was very surprised and humbled by this, gave me a quest reward, and asked me not to reveal what I’d learned–because if anybody knows the secret, it loses value! 😉
Paused there until next time

Action in Toothmaul Gully

I liked Toothmaul Gully, the public dungeon available to run on Auridon. The local plot to that dungeon was fun, and I liked two aspects of it in particular: a couple of the goblins actually being able to communicate with the player, and the main Veiled Heritance antagonist being willing to back off if I spared her life.

I opted to spare her life, just because I figured Gyllerah had room to be merciful here. She’s already cleared the overall Aldmeri Dominion plotline, so by and large, any Veiled Heritance types she runs into at this point are post-conflict cleanup. So I took the liberty of assuming that Nelanya was clever enough to realize this, once she clued in that she was up against me. I.e., the hero who helped secure the Dominion for Ayrenn in general, and who also kicked Heritance ass all over Auridon in particular. I think I’m safe in assuming that a bunch of the Veiled Heritance have a pretty damned good idea of what I look like by now.

That said, the game didn’t let me say so, but I also figure Gyllerah was not above saying very curtly to Nelanya that she’d have no trouble executing her if she proved to be a problem. Gyllerah is willing to be merciful. This doesn’t mean she’s willing to be stupid. 😉

Rearranging Gyllerah’s Solo build some more

I kept investigating how to improve Gyllerah’s Solo build, and came across a Templar build I wanted to try on alcasthq.com. This took me a bit of work to set up, since it wanted me to use a two-handed weapon the front bar, and that was not a skill I’d leveled up on Gyllerah.

Also, even aiming for the Beginner gear the build described, I had to buy a bunch of materials to make it all. Note that this is the gear I’m still wearing as Gyllerah when I solo, at least at the moment. It still hasn’t let me finish a full cycle of the Archive, but it definitely seems effective when I’m just doing solo questing and running dailies and such. And since I do not currently plan to use Gyllerah for DPS in trials, I’m kind of okay with that.

I was surprised to discover I actually enjoy using a two-handed sword with her. Whacking things with a greatsword makes for a very satisfying clang!

Still, there is room for improvement here. I’ve tried a test parse with this build, and my numbers were not very good. But I need to see if that has improved now that I’ve had more practice with it. And also, the build probably needs a monster set!

And, I need to take a closer look at this build’s rotation of skills and see if I can improve on that. Not only just practicing the skills, but also comparing them against this build for a solo stamplar on deltiasgaming.com. I’m working on setting up a secondary Dressing Room option for Gyllerah to use those skill bars.

Both builds want me to use Tzogvin’s Warband, but that’s not happening for now. That gear drops in Frostvault, a dungeon I don’t have access to. But I may try to go farm for it next time an ESO+ trial happens. Or, if I make enough gold selling stuff via guild traders, I might be able to pick up the crowns necessary to get that dungeon. We’ll see!

For now I’ll investigate the armor that I can craft, as well as the overland sets I can get, or the dungeon sets I do have access to.

Kidnapping plot in Riverhold

I’d already decided that I liked Mizzik Thunderboots as a generally colorful and memorable NPC. So it was gratifying to have this plot turn out to be fun, too.

It was not a plot to take very seriously, but that was okay. Not every plot has to be!

Along those lines, I found it charmingly weird, or perhaps weirdly charming, that the old father Khajiit whose daughter I was in theory supposed to find kept actual cats as pets in his house. Though I suppose that’s kind of like a human keeping pet monkeys? LOL.

And I say in theory because of course the allegedly missing daughter was, in fact, the leader of the local bandits herself. I was not expecting that specific reveal; I thought maybe she would be a bandit, yes, but not the actual leader of the smuggling ring.

Tasnasi in the Stitches

I’m not entirely sure when I stopped to talk to Tasnasi in the Stitches, other than that it must have happened at some point while I was playing on January 11th, according to the timestamp on the screenshot.

Fairly sure it must have been while I was running the main Northern Elsweyr plot, maybe on the way to the Sepulcher of Mischance. But it’s not too big a deal, just because I didn’t actually take Tasnasi’s quest. It felt like another quest that’d be more appropriate for Marwyth to run.

Final Northern Elsweyr action

The big climactic fights at the tail end of this plot were great, not gonna lie. I do not count Euraxia Tharn in this category, just because for all her bluster, she was not really the big bad of this plotline. Very nice crunchy fights with Cadwell the Betrayer and Mulaamnir, though!

I liked the little epilogue of having to go talk to the various allies before witnessing Khamira’s coronation. And in particular, I wound up rather liking Prefect Calo. I was very pleased at how ethical he was, and how he and his entire squadron helped the Khajiit defend Rimmen.

And it was very satisfying to have Khamira proclaim me Champion of Anequina. <3

Razak’s Wheel in Bangkorai

I ran this public dungeon as part of a Mages Guild daily quest, and this one was fun!

One of the internal plots in the place was to help a Covenant scout get free of the Imperial hostiles there, and recover her orders. Heh. Gyllerah, the Dominion-allied Eye of the Queen (or agent of the Pact, depending on whose point of view you’re working with), was not entirely sure she should be helping a Covenant scout, mind you. But I figured she was aware that Meridia would eventually send her over to live as a Covenant agent when she’s done being a Pact agent. So in the name of general diplomacy, she was willing to help!

And I got a Dwemer spider pet out of it, too. 😀

Gurzag’s Mine in Greenshade

I ran this delve finally while trying to get more skyshards for Gyllerah. It’s super near Cliffshade, which makes it a pretty convenient delve to reach, but I just hadn’t bothered to run it yet.

The place turned out to be full of dead Orcs. And I found a cursed axe that a Bosmer mage had left in there, which was the cause of all those deaths.

The quest off the axe wanted me to return it to the mage at the Mages Guild, and fortunately I didn’t have to go very far, he was right over in Marbruk, in the Mages Guild headquarters there. But once I found the guy, I didn’t like him much. He was absolutely unrepentant about killing the Orcs, and in fact, was super cheerful about it as he removed the curse on the axe and gave it to me as a quest reward.

Overall, I did not approve of this quest and I don’t think Gyllerah did, either. Forthor’s motive seemed on the surface to be laudable enough: he wanted to protect the forest from the Wood Orcs. But dropping a cursed axe into a mine was a stupid way to go about this. It only killed a bunch of Orcs specifically in the mine, and did absolutely fuck and all to any of the Orcs outside of it.

Plus, Forthor’s dialogue indicates his curse was not even specifically targeted to the Orcs, since he initially urges the player to get the axe away from him. Which means he basically slapped a “summon undead” curse onto that weapon, without being the slightest bit concerned about whether it would summon undead to threaten anybody else. And also, there’s a huge difference between “I want the Wood Orcs out of Greenshade” and “I want the Wood Orcs dead“. The latter is what he got. And he doesn’t seem the slightest bit remorseful about killing a bunch of Orcs, or willing to allow for the possibility that maybe some of those Orcs didn’t actually deserve it.

Meh. I will not be running this quest again.

Mirri’s quest

This quest, on the other hand, was delightful. I very much enjoyed the little mystery about having to track down Mirri’s mother Irenni, and how Mirri and Irenni were very, very clearly cut from the same family cloth.

Since doing this set of sessions, I have in fact finished off Mirri’s quest line as well, for both Gyllerah and Marwyth. I’ll have more to say on that in the relevant posts!

Joining the St. Blackwood guild

ESO lets you join up to five player guilds, and as of these sessions, I joined a second one finally. St. Blackwood. They’re a trading guild specifically, and I wanted regular access to a Guild trader. Swamp Haven remains my primary guild, but Swamp Haven usually only has a trader during events.

And I got actively interested in selling stuff, just to bump up the amount of gold I’d have available to spend on things in the game. And to get rid of stuff I knew I didn’t need!

This has definitely proven profitable. <3

I chose St. Blackwood specifically because they were a lower-profile guild, and didn’t have a set requirement for how much you had to sell in any given week or anything of the sort. I figured that’d be my best approach for trying my first trading guild!

Since then, I’ve actually also joined a second guild in the same cluster–since the Saints guilds include St. Blackwood, St. Greymoor, and St. Elsweyr. I’ve also joined Greymoor, since I’ve been able to maintain enough things for sale to fill up at least two traders. And more, actually! More on this to come in future posts.

Action in Eastmarch

What action I ran with Gyllerah in Eastmarch to push the Ebonheart Pact plot further along was mostly the same as how Marwyth did it earlier, with one major exception. Since Marwyth hadn’t done so, and since Gyllerah needed it for Cadwell’s Silver, I ran the side plot involving helping the giants at Cradlecrush. And this was fun!

I met Aspera Giant-Friend, who was the local quest giver for this plot, and who seemed suspiciously NOT MORTAL. The wiki says that like Aspera the Forgotten in Deshaan, she may well be an avatar of Boethiah. Which raises questions about why, exactly, Boethiah wants to involve herself in what’s going on in Eastmarch in particular. At least as of that point in the plot proceedings, I hadn’t seen any signs that Fildgor Orcthane was actually under any Daedric influence. And for that matter, once I actually finished the plot later, I saw no particular sign of Daedric involvement in the plot in general.

It was weird and cool to be able to do a plot to help giants, anyway. And rather alarming to have one of them kick me over the wall of the fort where I had to get in and fuck with some bad guys, LOL. I was very surprised that I actually survived that, but this is the benefit of having player character plot armor!

One of the plot tasks was freeing captured mammoths, which was also weirdly gratifying. Because from Skyrim, my experience with mammoths is usually “run the hell away from them so they won’t stomp me into the ground!” But i was only allowed to free four of them to satisfy the quest, and I was sad I couldn’t free other captured mammoths I saw.

All in all, very nice little side jaunt and I’m glad I did it! When I eventually have to run the Pact with my new alt Veghra, I’ll need to remember to do this plot for her too.

And of course, once I got to Fort Amol with Gyllerah, I got to see Naryu there. I don’t think Gyllerah swoons for Naryu quite like Marwyth does, though. ;D

Back to back Wood Elves named Nedras

I had forgotten until reviewing the screenshots for this post that I’d actually tried to go to the Imperial City on January 12th, and proceed with the plot hook that wanted me to report to a General Nedras there, a Wood Elf. The problem with this: the Imperial City is PVP territory. And boy howdy am I not ready to tackle that.

I tried to proceed with the plot objectives, but getting killed every couple of minutes was just not fun. So I bailed on the entire quest.

I’d also forgotten that I finally went to Northsalt Village in Rivenspire to return the journal of Nedras the Sly to his sister.

And only as I write this post am I noticing that both of these scenarios involved Wood Elves named Nedras! LOL. General Nedras, vs. Nedras the Sly.

I’m a little surprised that the wiki didn’t call this out. It’s usually good about noting when characters of the same name exist!

Sunhold public dungeon on Summerset

This was one of the few remaining bits of Summerset that I hadn’t run yet, and I enjoyed this dungeon! Nice local plot with having to fend off Maormer invaders, and rescue captured citizens, and burning supplies. Very gratifying to be able to run an entire public dungeon with a companion for backup, now.

I got two pieces of the Psijic Glowglobe emote while doing this. I’m somewhat tempted to go back and try for the rest of them, but as near as I can tell, it doesn’t actually throw useful light. And probably couldn’t given that it’s an emote and would stop being active as soon as I moved.

The reason I care about this: some dungeons are almost too dark for me to maneuver through. Almalexia’s Enchanted Lantern is my current solution for this, in my mementos–but it’d be nice to have other options. I do miss having torches like I can in Skyrim, or the Candlelight and Magelight spells!

(And yes, I know there’s a Magelight spell in ESO, but it doesn’t work the same way as it does in Skyrim. Its purpose in ESO is to reveal stealthed or invisible enemies, not to cast light! And I just want something that’ll let me see better in dark dungeons. When I cast this spell, I see it does throw a little blue globe of light, but it vanishes after five seconds. That’s not useful for dungeon exploration.)

Action in Grahtwood

I did like the Stone Cold plot in Grahtwood as a roleplay experience, mostly. But I quibbled hard with the actual core conflict. Which was, the Hollow creatures claiming that all of Valenwood would be in danger if the Driladan clan settled in the spot they were fighting over.

And… why? What was so dangerous about the spot that having a clan of Bosmer–who are, after all, supposed to be the elves that respect the woods and such–live there would threaten all of Valenwood? All I got in terms of info to work with was the Hollow Watchman’s claim that this was the case, and he was severely lacking on evidence to back this up.

Throw me an accusation that somebody’s going to threaten all of Valenwood if they move into a space, I need to see why. Are they closet violators of the Green Pact? Are they necromancers? Are they going to corrupt the woods somehow? Is there some sort of hidden power that they’re going to accidentally piss off by living on top of it, and which will wake up and DESTROY EVERYTHING? What?

So yeah. Would have been nice to have that plot point fleshed out a bit.

And also, it was weird to have the Driladans mention the Wilderking after I actually already played that plot and put the Wilderqueen into place as his successor. Gyllerah’s timehopping curse strikes again!

Action in Necrom and Apocrypha

Last but not least, I worked on more of the Necrom plot. And this was the point at which I got the first signs of Neramil and Curate Gadayn as a possible romantic pairing! I was particularly amused by Leramil being extremely understated about it, mentioning merely that she finds Gadayn “intriguing” and “interesting”.

Apparently Leramil likes dudes who hang out with the dead? 😉 Given her Goth-y makeup choices, this kinda tracks!

But before I could go any further with the Necrom plotline, I got distracted by the side quest with Hezekh the skaafin. Which turned out to be a surprisingly charming little quest!

And, as it happened, it involved characters I’d soon see again in a brief foray into the Deadlands. More on this to come in an upcoming post.

Next time

Gyllerah’s next post will feature:

Picking up Azandar as my third Companion
Running the first part of Ember’s quest to find out what happened to her childhood friends
Moving the Eastmarch plot along
Trying my first trial of ESO+ along with the Guilds and Glory event, and hitting a bunch of areas I hadn’t previously had access to, notably Fargrave, Murkmire, Orsinium, the Gold Coast, and Southern Elsweyr