In Which Gyllerah Helps Azandar Chase Frayed Fates

Final January 2024 post for Gyllerah’s playthrough on ESO. This covers the final week of the month, but as with some of my other recent posts, I’m leaving out days when I just did writ work and resource harvesting and such.

Main action here: my first look at Falkreath Hold, getting the Ring of the Pale Order, and advancing the personal quest of Azandar al-Cybiades.

Play by play

Play dates: 1/22-1/25, 1/27/2024
Session numbers in this run: 342-346

January 22nd

Ran Infinite Archive with Hops in Swamp Haven so I could actually, y’know, finish a cycle
Later, ran Falkreath Hold a couple of times with guildmates, so that I could get pieces of the Pillar of Nirn set to work on my archive gear
VERY impressive final boss, minotaur making a hell of an entrance through an upper window, and squashing the Jarl
And now apparently I’m thane of Falkreath? Yay? 😉
Kel showed off her Nordic house, also fun!
Went hunting in Bangkorai to farm chests again, but still no sign of the relevant lead for the Ring of the Pale Order
Later, tried another run at the Archive, since I had enough Pillar of Nirn and Briarheart to get close to the intended set, even though some of the items were bad traits

January 23rd

Did a fuckton of chest farming in Bangkorai, trying to get that lead for the Ring of the Pale Order
This was just not working, until I found a forums page suggesting trying to clear other pending gold leads first; did that, and that actually seemed to help
Tried another round of chest visiting in the area in the southwest part of the map, near the public dungeon, and that finally got me the lead
So that left only the lead that drops in Bad Man’s Hallows, and I boinged to Glenumbra to take care of that
Local plot basically had HI WE ARE TOTALLY A CULT written all over it
Showed up and found some Bretons claiming to be having a festival honoring “the Bad Man” to appease him for a good harvest
They asked me to put some apples and grain on the altar, where they were set on fire
They then asked me to throw dirt on that fire–at which point I was transported down into the root system of a tree
Learned from others trapped down there that the so-called “Bad Man” was a minor Daedric lord
Worked with one guy to get ceremonial gems for him to conjure up a way to banish the Daedra, and with a woman who wanted me to burn the roots of the Daedra tree
One of the bosses dropped one lead I needed (for the Ring of the Wild Hunt), and mobs dropped the other
So then I was able to get through the portal and back out again
Found the glade I’d just been in burned, and a stunned curator going WTF HAPPENED
Told him I’d burned the Daedra tree’s roots
He urged me to go burn the altar, so I did that and destroyed the Daedra
Scampered off to scry for both of the ring bits!
Returned to Cliffshade for the night

January 24th

Did some treasure map farming
- Blackreach: Greymoor
- Stros M’Kai, where I also got a lead on Ancestral Orc helmets
- Reaper’s March
- The Rift, where I also got a lead on Ancestral Nord swords
Did one run in the Archive with the Pillar of Nirn/Briarheart/Pale Order setup; however, still didn’t make it past cycle number four
Got the dragon again >_<

January 25th

Ran more of Azandar’s quest line
Went with him to Skywatch to visit his personal sanctum there
He had me help him add a bit of extra functionality to his Fateweaver key
Then we scried to see where we’d have to go next to get rid of more of his frayed fates
This took us to Kozanset in the Alik’r Desert—which turned out to be his hometown
We found a few of his fates there and dispelled them
But also saw his evil fate show up again and destroy one (a tour guide) before we could
Proceeded into a nearby public dungeon, the Lost City of the Na-Totambu
Picked up a couple other local quests while in there
Ran one to gather 12 Yokudan relics to help somebody in Sentinel pay off a debt
And also one to help a guy who’d been captured by Khajiit bandits
Helped him find some Eyes of Yokuda and use those to get another fancy relic, which required me to appease the ghost of a king before he’d let me have it
Did so via a trial by combat, in which I just had to take out a couple of undead warriors
That let me give the guy the fancy relic
Meanwhile, also advanced Azandar’s quest and got him to the point of realizing he was going to have to re-evaluate this hostile other fate of his, which had clearly become self-aware and was intending to replace him
Lastly went to Sentinel to find the NPC who needed to receive the relics I’d gathered
Chased off a debt collector who was hounding her, and told her her husband was dead
She was grateful for the help and said she’d use the relics to raise money to move someplace else

January 27th

Ran Maw of Lorkhaj trial with Swamp Haven; went pretty decently 🙂
Afterwards, boinged to Hew’s Bane for a bit with Mirri as backup
Had multiple Hew’s Bane treasure maps out of the Thieves Guild coffers dropped during the ESO+ trial, two copies of map 1 and one of map 2, so ran all three of those

First time in Falkreath Hold

Since I had the ESO+ trial active at the end of January, I was able to take advantage of having access to all the dungeons. This included Falkreath Hold, which is where the Pillar of Nirn set drops.

Pillar is one of the sets I see get mentioned the most when you want to kit yourself out for high DPS. So I was very interested in getting my mitts on some of that! Swamp Haven guildmates obligingly escorted me on a gear run through there a couple of times, and that was great fun. 😀

I really liked the final boss: a huge minotaur that made a hell of an entrance crashing through an upper window, and landing to squash the fuck out of the poor unfortunate Jarl.

His immediate successor then proclaimed me a thane of Falkreath for the help. Aw. <3

So that got me a fair number of Pillar of Nirn pieces, which I have proceeded to mostly use on Marwyth, not Gyllerah. As I write this, there’s actually another ESO+ trial in effect on the game right now. And since I haven’t yet managed to scarf the Horns of the Reach DLC (which contains Falkreath Hold), I’ll be taking advantage of that trial to continue getting pieces of the set. It’d be nice to get enough to fill out my stickerbook, and bring down the cost of reconstructing needed pieces to under 50 transmute crystals.

Because yeah, Pillar of Nirn rocks pretty hard.

Getting the Ring of the Pale Order

I finally got the Ring of the Pale Order during these sessions, farming the last couple of leads!

The one that drops in chests in Bangkorai was a huge pain, since the drop rate on that is really low. But the tip I saw on a forums post about running other pending gold leads in my list first did seem to help. I don’t know for sure that it did–I don’t know how the chances of a gold lead dropping are calculated on the back end–so this is only anecdotal. But for the benefit of any player who might read this and who wants the Pale Order ring, you might try clearing any other gold leads out first before you go farming in chests in Bangkorai.

I’ve since come to learn that even after you get a Mythic, you can still get the individual leads for it. So it’s absolutely possible to get multiple copies of the same Mythic. I have in fact gotten repeat leads for the Ring of the Pale Order since getting it for Gyllerah!

I am not, however, currently feeling inclined to get more than one copy. But I reserve the right to change my mind on this later, in which case, hey Future Me, clear out those other gold leads first!

Now that I have the ring in question, I sure do like its damage boost. I just have to remember to not use it in groups! So right now I have it slotted whenever I have Gyllerah’s DPS/Stamplar build on her, which I only use if I’m running her solo (or with a Companion). Which includes running the Infinite Archive.

I could of course try to get copies of the Pale Order ring for Marwyth and Veghra, but I’m actually using other Mythics on both of them. And there are enough Mythics in the game that I feel pretty good about the idea of allocating specific Mythics to specific characters. It helps me vary things up a bit.

Bad Man’s Hallows

Related to previous, the final lead I had to get for the Ring of the Pale Order was the one that drops in Bad Man’s Hallows, the public dungeon right near Daggerfall. That was fun!

The local plot basically had yep we sure are a cult written all over it. But in a refreshing change of pace, it was a bit less “outright cult” and a bit more “otherwise well-meaning people strong-armed into serving a Daedric lord”. Because of course there was Daedric action going on. I am shocked, shocked I say, etc.

Fun plot, though! And also a useful dungeon to run not only for farming the Ring of the Pale Order, but also the Ring of the Wild Hunt.

A note about Infinite Archive bosses

Even after getting the Ring of the Pale Order, I still had trouble actually finishing out a full cycle on my own. This situation has kind of persisted since January. I’ve backed off on playing the Archive some. I still go in there periodically, but still have a bit of a time actually making it out of the first cycle. Much depends on which bosses I get.

I think it was Yolnahkriin who was the particular dragon that kicks my ass every time I see him? But when I look at the wiki for the list of available bosses in the Archive, I see three different dragons that have a chance to spawn. Suffice to say that I am not powerful enough to take on a dragon boss by myself. So if any of those dragons shows up, that basically toasts the cycle for me.

That said: I have actually successfully run a cycle in the Archive by myself at this point. So I am improving! More on this later.

Still though, I appreciated getting a chance to actually run the Archive with another player. So kudos to Hops of Swamp Haven for helping me out with that. I need to remember that it is, in fact, possible to run the Archive with another player.

More fun with Azandar

I continued Azandar’s personal quest line during these sessions, and kicked that off by going with him to his personal sanctum in Skywatch. It amused me that he has digs there as well as in Apocrypha! Given how many houses and inn rooms I have, I suppose this checks out. 😉

Azandar also had a flesh atronach in the place. Which was somewhat disquieting! Just because in the vast majority of encounters with flesh atronachs I’ve had in this game, anybody inclined to actually make one has been questionable in their motives at best. (I’m looking straight at you, Abnur Tharn.) But then, this kind of tracks with Azandar’s character in general, as he does ride a line between being in love with his own skill and being mature enough to adhere to some morals.

Still though, eww.

I did really enjoy running the Lost City of Na-Tatombu to continue his plot, though. Nice public dungeon overall, with good local plots. About the only thing I didn’t like about it was multiple gauntlets of traps, but as I learned how to get past the spike or fire traps in other dungeons in the game, those weren’t really a hardship. They were just slightly annoying.

And I quite liked Azandar’s realization that he was going to have to re-evaluate this evil fate of his, since it had clearly become self-aware and was intending to replace him. OHNOEZ.

Also, I reached the level of “Close” with Azandar on his Rapport. So I immediately got the next stage of his quest, after finishing the one in Na-Tatombu! Running a bunch of Enchanter writs in his presence really helped with the Rapport. 😀

Next time

Gyllerah’s next post, to begin covering her action from February, will include finishing up action in the Ebonheart Pact to clear Cadwell’s Silver!