In Which Marwyth and the Thieves Guild Crash a Wedding

Another post where I cover a week’s worth of time, but only a few actual play sessions. Back around to Marwyth now! Main action here: stuff on Summerset that was all fairly familiar since I did it already as Gyllerah, and reaching the climax of the Thieves Guild plotline. Which required crashing a wedding!

Play by play

Play dates: 2/8-2/14/2024
Session numbers in this run: 105-107

February 8th

Did a bunch of harvesting around Alinor with Mirri
Ran the Rellenthil geyser
Found the second of the Psijic artifacts
Closed the first two Summerset breaches

February 10th

Ranged fairly wide on Summerset doing a hunt for galatite and silver
Closed breach number 3 and picked up a skyshard near Karnwasten
Ran around on Summerset a lot trying to find more breaches to close, which required me to run a couple of plots I’d done as Gyllerah
Did the plot in Rellenthil tracking the Canonreeve’s son into the sinkhole, and spotting the Sea Sload
Watched Raz take out the guy, still quite badass maneuver
Did the plot at the menagerie, and yep that Conservator still is a racist bitch, still quite satisfying to take her out
Told the indrik keeper he should take over as conservator of the place again
Made it to the little bandit camp in the southeast corner of the island
Found the bandits arguing over which of them had murdered their leader
Got the treasure chest for them and let them fight it out, LOL
All three of them killed her, WHAT A TWIST
Last but not least finished up running the Thieves Guild plotline
Had to report back to Abah’s Landing and steal an invitation for the wedding
Was given an option to pickpocket a noble or break into another noble’s house
Took the pickpocket option since now I’m actually leveled up for that
Then I had get an outfit for the wedding
Finally chose one of the ones clearly intended for dudes, but I thought it looked rather dashing on Marwyth
So did Zeira, who called it ‘roguish’ on her <3
Also had to pick a plus one, and I went with Velsa, on the grounds that she had experience with how Nicolas worked; Velsa actually approved of my reasoning there
Meanwhile set up the plan to provide a distraction at the gate while Zeira, in her own outfit, snuck into the place
She dressed up with a harem dancer looking thing, with a veil over her face
Made it in, at which point we all discovered that SHOCKER the merchant lord ‘Cosh’ was in fact Nicolas himself, so we all had to figure out WTF to do next
Swiped a key to get into the more private areas of the palace off a servant; this took a couple of tries, because I had trouble getting the pickpocket UI to kick in when crouched behind one of the servants
Also had to get a pontificating noble to drop me some intel on where to find Magnifica Falorah
Managed to sneak into her quarters and Zeira and I confronted her
This then required doing a puzzle to unlock Nicolas’ secret chamber, where he’d stashed some critical evidence from the al-Danobia tomb
(Seriously, dude? What made you think HIDING THAT IN THE PALACE WAS A GOOD IDEA? Sheesh)
I did like the puzzle though, had to follow a nearby book’s clue about the order to turn rigged candlesticks, based on which seasonal painting they were next to
(And the paintings were game screenshots LOL)
Velsa and I got out again while Zeira presented the evidence to Magnifica Falorah
Then we all went back out to listen to “Cosh” try to make a speech
But Falorah confronted him with Zeira
At which point the Iron Wheel tried to arrest EVERYBODY and Velsa and I had to get the fuck out
Had trouble with this, couldn’t figure out the proper escape route, and got killed a couple of times on the way out because I was TRYING not to kill anybody
But finally derped my way out of there and fled back to the Thieves Den
Discovered Zeira had placed me in temporary charge
And I had to work with the others to formulate a plan to go break Zeira out of prison before the Iron Wheel shipped her off out of our reach
So we went to break into No Shira Citadel again:
- Quen scouted the place
- Walks-Softly nabbed a guard uniform and helped me get in
- Velsa set some traps
I made it to Magnifica Falorah, who agreed to escort me into the prison to Zeira’s cell block
We also found Nicolas locked up and he offered to tell us where Zeira was if we left him a lockpick
So I had to talk to the others to get their take on whether to let the guy have a lockpick–because he was an asshole
I finally opted for it, and we left him be and went to go break out Zeira
Got her out safely and we all retreated to the Thieves Den
Zeira gave us the final update about her having a new working relationship with Falorah
And I got the Merchant Lord Regalia costume, which had been the outfit Nicolas was wearing at the wedding! I look better in it, asshole ;D

February 12th

Got the last few breeches closed on Summerset, with Ember as backup
Hit the one down by Sunhold, and ran a geyser while down there
Then hoofed it northward, after one wayshrine hop, and hit the one by Archon Grove
Then hoofed it further northward and aimed for the Direnni Acropolis
Hit the breach in there, then actually ran the local plot because it’s a good one
This time through opted to re-bind the necromancer ghost into her body, because Marwyth has no goddamn patience for necromancers
Then it was time to go to Artaeum
First checked in with the Loremaster to tell him I’d closed all the breeches on Summerset
That got me officially into the Psijic Order and unlocked the skill line
Then got directive to go talk to Josajeh again for the next set of breaches, in the Alik’r Desert
Then did more of the actual Psijic Order plot
Checked in with the Ritemaster and watched him and Valsirenn discover that the beaches were under attack
So we ran down there to deal with it
Played through to the point of needing to enter K’Tora’s mindscape and rescue the Ritemaster’s psyche from him–and also kill K’Tora
Talked to Sotha Sil after–and THAT little encounter plays different if you’ve actually already run Clockwork City
Got directive to talk to the Proxy Queen in Alinor
Left off there until next time

Psijic Order stuff

In general, I’m trying to suss out Marwyth’s frame of mind here. I’m not sure if she cares about the Psijic Order per se, or if she’s putting up with joining forces with them, on the assumption that it’ll be temporary?

Or, if her better nature is asserting itself here some?

Or, if she’s joining them because she believes Azura wants her to? Mostly this, I think. Azura did point blank tell her to help the Tribunal, and the Summerset/Psijic plot is the tail end of the entire Daedric War arc. So I can buy that Marwyth interprets Azura’s directive as still in play here.

And as I noted above, the conversation with Sotha Sil after killing K’Tora does hit rather differently if you’ve already played through Clockwork City. His dialogue wasn’t any different than when I’d run the plot as Gyllerah. But the whole background of the Clockwork City plot, as well as Marwyth’s own spiky opinions about the Tribunal in general, put a different color of the conversation in general.

Other than these thoughts, though, I pretty much already knew this plot. So I don’t have much to add here.

Thieves Guild stuff

The Thieves Guild wedding crashing, though, now we’re talkin’. 😀

This was the big climax of the entire Thieves Guild quest line, and it was definitely fun and challenging. I was amused by having to pilfer an invitation, because of course I did! And the part with picking out an outfit to wear was amusing, particularly with the option of choosing something decidedly not feminine.

I mean, after all, this was a working Guild heist! I didn’t want to be in a stupidly impractical gown. Even aside from Marwyth really, really not being the type to wear gowns. I’m just glad the game gave me the opportunity to choose something dashing! Or, as Zeira put it, roguish!

I think it was right around this point in time that I started to realize that “Magnifica” was not part of the character’s name–it’s her title. Once I realized that there was a “House of the Silent Magnifico” in Sentinel, that finally clicked for me. And honestly, I was a bit relieved by figuring that out, too, just because “Magnifica Falorah” sounds ridiculously over the top as a name. It still sounds over the top if “Magnifica” is a title, but at least a bit less so.

Getting out of the party once all hell broke loose was the most challenging part of it, just because I was trying to actually avoid killing anybody. Marwyth, I feel, probably tries these days to avoid killing anyone without cause if she can. And I, as a player, certainly didn’t want to risk running up bounties by fighting with the Iron Wheel and killing one or more of their number.

It did making getting the hell out of the party difficult, though. I was outnumbered and outmatched, and died multiple times trying to escape. But I did at least finally derp my way to the gate and get out.

Once I got back to the Thieves Den, I was pleasantly surprised that I was only temporarily in charge of the Guild, with Zeira’s absence–and later, once we rescued her, this was confirmed. This is a nice change of pace from playing all the faction plots in Skyrim, where you ultimately wind up in charge of the faction. Not so much in ESO. I like that! It feels more realistic to me.

And I got out of the whole affair with a dashing new costume, too! Which does look better on Marwyth than on that asshole Nicolas, to be sure. ;D

Next time

Marwyth’s next post is going to cover the rest of February, since for the most part, my action with her that month was fairly light. But there will be more Summerset and Psijic action to cover! Stay tuned!