In Which Kendeshel Destroys the Dark Brotherhood and Excavates at Rkund

Back around to Kendeshel’s run in Skyrim. This is her last session from January, and I have two more sessions of hers after this one before I’m caught up.

In this one, main action is assorted side stuff from Anniversary Edition content; destroying the Dark Brotherhood, but picking up an extra side quest as a result of that, courtesy of Legacy of the Dragonborn; running Darklight Tower; and also, running the expedition at Rkund, significant Legacy content. Obviously, lots of spoilers here for the Legacy of the Dragonborn mod.

Play by play

Play date: 1/30/2024
Session number in this run: 39
Picked up again at the Safehouse
Slept for the night, and prayed when I got up
Then went out and fast traveled to Tolvald’s Cave, to pick up where I left off on my round the map run
Ran it mostly with no problems and got the Cuirass of the Crusader, see below
Got out again, mounted up, and boinged straight to Riften
Went into Honeyside and shelved a bunch of books I didn’t need
Slept the night, then sold stuff to Bersi and Balimund in the morning
Talked to Viriya to get next Fishing quest, and that pointed me at Morthal for the fishing content
Kicked off the Gray Cowl quest; got the stuff out of Nivenor and Bolli’s strongbox by talking to Nivenor
Tried to go to Crystaldrift Cave, but realized I didn’t have any madness ore on me, so changed tactics
Went back to Riften, reported Grelod to the patrolling guard, and let him confront and kill her
Then went over and got Iona on housecarl duty
Took her over to Shor’s Stone and stopped there to make her a full set of Ebony Plate armor, a sword, a shield, and a bow
Then told her to buy a horse, and we set out to head to Mistwatch
Passed Khajiit killing a frostbite spider
Stopped to fight a wolf on the way, and then stopped to check options on my horse
While I was doing that, some Thalmor with a prisoner showed up and started bitching at me for not moving along fast enough–and then attacked me
I fought back—and then got a warning that Julianos had abandoned me, oh shit
Also got a 1,000 bounty in the Rift, and WELL THAT WON’T DO
Rolled back from there to Shor’s Stone
Re-did making Iona some new gear, this time Ebony Spell Knight instead of Ebony Plate
Made her get a horse again, and re-did setting out
Passed Ahkari’s Khajiit again, but this time no spider, and also no Thalmor
Made it to Evethra’s forge; took her and her skeletons out
Got the Arcane Blacksmith’s apron, her forging notes, and other loot
Tried to go over to get Shadowrend, but was immediately interrupted by a Blood Dragon, probably from Bonestrewn Crest, and also cultists that I had to fight immediately after the dragon
Tried to take Shadowrend in its greatsword form, and was then attacked and frozen by my shadow
Was immobile the whole fight, Iona had to kill the shadow
But then I was able to take Shadowrend
From there, boinged to Windhelm
Checked on Aventus and told him Grelod was dead
Then attempted to go sleep in Hjerim (HI CALDER)
But realized Iona had vanished, so I went back out into the city to look for her, to no avail
Also no sign of the courier to bring me the note from the Brotherhood
Slept in Hjerim anyway, then boinged back to Riften; still no sign of Iona
Slept at Honeyside–and this time the kidnapping occurred, even though I never got the courier
HI ASTRID! Not leaving this shack unless somebody dies? RIGHT THEN, you just volunteered
Killed her and freed all three of the captives
Then tried to fast travel to Solitude, but had to hoof it a short distance away before I could (probably slaughterfish)
Told the guard I’d taken out the Brotherhood’s leader; he was all !!!! and told me to go tell Commander Maro
Headed out to do that, but first tried to move Iona back to me via the console, and she immediately tried to run off; she apparently reproed the same bug I saw Valdimar doing in Harrow’s playthrough
Followed her until she got to the arch over the docks, and then was able to stop her and talk to her
That seemed to kick her back to normal, and I got her to follow me to Dragon Bridge
Sighted the Headless Horseman!
Reported to the commander and got the quest to go wipe out the Brotherhood
Fast traveled to the Roadside Ruins
Heard a dragon nearby but didn’t see one land
Other hostiles were present on the HUD, but nothing showed up to fight me
Ran over to the sanctuary and got in
Called up the dremora to rampage through the place, and took everybody out
And then found an NPC added in by Legacy, old blind Greigor who gave me the quest to get the Hand of Glory
Searched the rest of the place for anything interesting to take back to the museum
I don’t remember if I ever found the bones of Gaston Bellefort before in the sanctuary? I did this time though!
Also got the word for Marked for Death off the Word Wall
Then came back out and fast traveled back to Dragon Bridge
At which point Iona showed up again, but back in her default gear, but at least with her horse
Reported back to the commander and got his quest reward
And as soon as I came out of the building, an Imperial messenger showed up, another change from Legacy; this guy relayed the thanks of the Emperor and gave me a sword called Fortune
Rode back to Solitude
Found Ma’dran’s Khajiit on site so shopped with Ma’dran
Nabbed a Golden Greatsword from him for displays, a couple of bears for the girls, and a doll display
Headed in and was greeted by Sofie on the street, she gave me a flower <3
Went to the museum first and began doing display work; had a crash though and had to start that over
Put a bunch of books on display, and unlocked the Bibliophile achievement for 250 books filed in the library!
That got me the Adventures of Auryen and Patero Vol. 3 book, and a mini-quest to talk to Auryen about that
However could not find Auryen, since he’d gone to the expedition at Rkund
Also displayed various weapons, including Astrid’s Blade of Woe and the Armor of the Crusader from Tolvald’s Cave
Once I was done, went over to Proudspire to check on the family and sleep there for the night
Not sure where I can put the doll display for the children!
Next up: going to do the expedition at Rkund
Took the Dev Aveza to Riften for this, then went with Iona to get to Rkund
Took out a dragon and a troll on the way
Also sighted Faldrus the pilgrim
Had to go through Darklight Tower for the easiest way to get up there
But actually had to run Darklight Tower twice–because first time through, Illia actually pissed off Iona by doing damage to her with her Frost Cloak spell! Iona killed her, and I failed the quest, oooops
So rolled back from that, and ran Darklight the second time through properly
Helped Illia take out her aspiring hagraven mother
Then it was just a short walk from there over to the Rkund expedition site
The very first thing I saw was the expedition team fighting a wispmother and wisps, so helped them out with that fight
Also found two naked witches lying dead right in the middle of the camp, because apparently Legacy does not clean up the dead bodies lying there by default 😆
I took the time to at least move the dead witch bodies out of the way!
Gave Latoria as many ruined and burned books as I could, out of all the ones I had on me
Then helped out the expedition by using a survey tool to mark potential dig sites for them
This took three tries, and the dig site we wanted was literally right next to the camp
Got down into the place and Madras started geeking out about it
Killed assorted Falmer as you do in a Dwemer ruin
Had to acquire three cogs to solve a giant cog puzzle with twelve buttons that powered it
Followed the Legacy wiki’s instructions on that because I didn’t have the patience to figure it out myself
The NPCs didn’t follow me into an icy cavern with a long winding ledge all the way down, or into an area with a lot of lava
But I bypassed the lava by following the wiki’s instructions, and using a control cube to just open a portal up to the top of that area so I could get the cog
After that, used the cogs to open up access to the next part of the dungeon–because this place was pretty huge
The next part required me making my way through two different mazes
Kyre Oldenson volunteered to come with me so I wouldn’t be going in there by myself
So we ran the first maze, which took a while, and then had to run the second one
Once I finally got through there we found Karagas’ Tower, which was the main interesting part of the ruin
Triggered a big scary illusion that was a deliberate callback to the Wizard of Oz, with Latoria playing the part of the Cowardly Lion, snerk
Found a little Dwemer mechanism that Madras adopted and called Eggleman
Found a mechanism that’s supposed to be able to make any object you give it look like any other object of a similar type
Checked with Madras about a schematic I found, and he told me to follow up with him after they finished up cataloguing everything in the ruin; this is apparently for the side quest of restoring the ruin’s planetarium
Finally took my leave and returned to the Dev Aveza in Riften
Airshipped back to Solitude and did the usual display and inventory managing
Left off at the Safehouse until next time

Running Tolvald’s Cave with Legacy of the Dragonborn active

I’ve been in Tolvald’s Cave a few times now, since I generally do run it any time I’m playing a thief character. If I’m not playing a thief, I usually skip it, just because there’s nothing hugely compelling to do in there other than go after the Crown of Barenziah.

This time I’m not playing a thief, but I am playing Legacy of the Dragonborn. And as I’ve already observed earlier in this run, this means revisiting a whole bunch of places I wouldn’t otherwise have hit, just to see what if anything Legacy did to them.

In this case, I found a couple of Falmer Loremasters and got more arrows off of them, as well as an Ancient Falmer Warmace. I also found a boatload of Vivec sermon books to add to the growing library in the museum. And most importantly, I got the Cuirass of the Crusader, which is what I went in there for to begin with.

But since I’m explicitly not playing a thief in this run, and therefore not going after the Crown of Barenziah, I didn’t get into that room. It’s blocked off without the Barenziah quest active. Kendeshel’s museum displays will just have to deal without the crown!

Extra bonus NPC this time when destroying the Dark Brotherhood

Kendeshel’s taking out of the Dark Brotherhood went almost the same as every other time I’ve done it, with a couple of exceptions:

Her playthrough has the mod that lets me turn in Grelod the Kind rather than killing her, and
Legacy of the Dragonborn adds a whole separate NPC into the Brotherhood sanctuary!

I didn’t find the guy, an old blind man named Greigor, until after I took everybody else out. And apparently this guy was perhaps a trifle deaf as well, because he showed absolutely no sign whatsoever of realizing I’d just killed every single one of his comrades. Also, he mistook me for an assassin, which I feel had to have caused Kendeshel a bit of consternation.

(And, uh, hate to break it to you old man, but I’m actually not an assassin, I just wiped out every assassin in this place, did you not notice that? Um. Okay, yes, whatever you say, I’ll go get the thing for you! ANYWAY.)

Greigor is Legacy of the Dragonborn’s quest giver for you to go after the Hand of Glory. And not gonna lie, not really inclined to use this item as Kendeshel, I only decided to pursue the quest for display purposes only. I’m probably going to chuck the thing down into the secret display room as soon as I have it. I’ll consider this Kendeshel’s way of humoring the old guy whose comrades she just wiped out, maybe.

But since getting this item requires going to Solstheim, it’ll have to wait a bit, until Kendeshel is ready to run Dragonborn.

Meanwhile, worth noting as well that the family heirloom that Aventus gives you for killing Grelod the Kind (even if you didn’t actually kill her because you’re running a modded playthrough) does count as a display item for Legacy’s museum!

Hey Latoria, you like ruined books? This is your lucky day, lady

As part of hitting the expedition at Rkund, I hit up Latoria to give her a metric boatload of ruined and burned books I had on me. I wasn’t sure why at the time, but she didn’t take all the ones I had on me. I had over two hundred of the things!

According to the Legacy of the Dragonborn wiki, though, this was because she takes them in multiples of 20. So that explains that. I just need to keep that in mind with further book handoffs to her.

And that put a huge dent in my carry weight, to be sure!

And speaking of Rkund

This session also saw me officially kicking off action with the expedition team at Rkund. And I gotta admit, I was not terribly impressed with these guys when I showed up.

The reason for this: the first thing I was asked to do was use a survey tool to mark potential dig sites for them. And I was all, uh, guys, you seriously needed my help to do that? It took me three tries, but it also turned out that the dig site we wanted was literally right next to the camp.

So apparently Marassi needed me to show up and find where to dig for them because they can’t find their asses unless I draw them a map. Snerk. 😀

I know, I know, this is one of those “I do this because I’m the player character” things, absolutely. I am totally not snarking on Legacy here. I’m snarking on the general Bethesda genre of quests! (But y’all know I’m snarking from a place of love, right? After all, I am writing this on a blog full of in-depth playthrough geekery.)

Once we actually got into the place, things got more interesting. First up, I found Madras geeking out about the place legit adorable. Delightful character work there.

The giant puzzle I had to solve by finding three cogs was also legitimately cool in design. But it was also one of those things I have only so much patience for. So without hesitation, I just hit up the Legacy wiki again and followed its instructions for how to solve the puzzle.

There were a couple of areas that the NPCs explicitly did not follow me into, because they were more dangerous terrain: an icy cavern that required me to make careful progress along a ledge winding around the wall of it all the way down, and a branch of the ruin that was going to involve a lot of lava. Wise move on their part, and a nice touch on the part of the mod creators.

That said, I also bypassed the lava, by also following the wiki’s clue about using a control cube to open a portal to where I needed to get another cog. This was less a puzzle question and more one of, I didn’t want to get hung up trying to navigate my way through lava! And as it turned out, it was a welcome time saver anyway because the entire ruin was pretty frigging huge, and I was only just getting started.

The next major part of the ruin was a couple of mazes. Kyre Oldenson actually volunteered to come in there with me so I wouldn’t be doing it by myself, which, again, nice touch. Even while I was all “son, I do appreciate the thought, but I do have my housecarl right here.”

Iona, waving: “Hiya.”

But sure, c’mon, an extra sword certainly won’t hurt!

And the mazes were fun. I liked that the mod gave you a box of torches you could use to mark your path through the first part of it! This was very helpful. But even given that, and given the wiki’s hints about how to make it through, it took me a while. And that was just the first part. There was a whole second part after that.

Did I mention this ruin was huge?

Once I finally made it to Karagas’ Tower, I was simultaneously amused by the blatant homage to The Wizard of Oz, and slightly mortified on behalf of Latoria, who got shoehorned into a Cowardly Lion schtick to play into that. Arguably in character for her, since she’s on record as not being up for most adventuring–she says as much to the player when you first recruit her for the museum, after all! And she also flipped out before earlier in the run, with the whole instruction of the raccoon at the previous dig. Still though, I find myself hoping that as I proceed through this plot, Latoria might actually get a chance to be brave for once. It’d be nice to see her have a bit of a character arc that way.

And once I got through all of that, I was finally able to explore the tower, which Legacy sets up as an available player home. If you’re into Dwemer things, it certainly fits the bill. It’s nicely designed, absolutely. But it’s got the same issue I have with other remote player homes, like most of the ones introduced by the Anniversary Edition content. Which is: I cannot imagine the usual types of characters I play actually living there, and especially not bringing in a family.

There was one other issue, too. Legacy has totally spoiled me for how I have quick and immediate access to my main stash of stuff back at the Safehouse, through several different means: the Dev Aveza, the shelter tent I found, and the Stash Supplies spell. But this player home isn’t hooked up to the Safehouse, so you don’t get that free and immediate access. Legacy’s wiki even warns about that! And the wiki page isn’t wrong. I would find it tedious to try to set up a home there, after the mod’s been so lavish up to this point with giving me such great organization of my stuff. ;D

So mostly, I just explored the place to get critical quest and/or display objects.

One mechanism did intrigue me a bit, a thing that was supposed to let you make any object look like a different object of the same type. This struck me as kind of a cousin in spirit of the transmute station in ESO!

All in all I found Rkund mostly fun, but a bit overly long. I’m putting this post up multiple months after actually playing that session, but from what I remember, I took a lot longer than I wanted running Rkund, and wondering when I was going to get to the end of it. I feel like it dragged on a bit longer even than the previous expedition had done. According to the timestamps on my screenshots, I was playing this session until 3:30 in the morning!

I’ll be intrigued to see how the planetarium side quest goes, though! More on this in the next couple Kendeshel posts I put up.

Oh hey look Legacy of the Dragonborn updated while I had a long hiatus

As I worked on this post tonight, I also worked on doublechecking whether my various Skyrim playthroughs are still loading okay in my Windows VM. And that of course necessitated doublechecking my Vortex install, and all my mods.

While doing that, I saw that Legacy of the Dragonborn’s version 6 dropped since the last time I looked!

For the record, I will not be updating Legacy during the rest of Kendeshel’s run, or any of the patches that go with it. For generally obvious “because I don’t want to fuck up the rest of her playthrough” reasons.

But when I finally finish off the current playthroughs and fire up a second Legacy run, because there probably will be one, then I’ll update to version 6.

Next time

Kendeshel’s next post will feature more hunting of Legacy’s little suite of special tools; some issues with Crowstooth and Alvasorr the Rat at Arcwind Point; and running Rielle to move the Cause plot further along.