In Which Finds-The-Way Joins the Dawnguard
Another Skyrim catchup post, this one for Finds-The-Way’s playthrough. This is from early August, and features a bit of Dark Brotherhood contract action, as well as Finds finally joining the Dawnguard.
Play by play
- Play date: 8/5/2024
- Session number in this run: 51
- Picked up again at Lakeview
- Realized the Tumblerbane gloves from the Brotherhood Sanctuary were not as good at increasing my Lockpicking as my Guildmaster gloves, so left them on one of the armory mannequins
- Decided to head out and do the two minor assassination contracts I had
- Sent Iona home to Riften temporarily
- Sold a bunch of stuff to Mallus at the brewery
- Then boinged off to Morthal to try to take out Lurbuk
- Landed at Myrwatch and tried to sneak over to the inn, but got fried by the bandit mages that had respawned again
- So thrown back to coming out of the brewery, and boinged to Myrwatch, take two
- Got attacked again, but this time I took out the bandits
- Then headed into the inn and started trying to take out Lurbuk, which took a few tries, see below
- Then boinged off to Dragon Bridge to see about the contact there–who turned out to be a corrupt member of the Penitus Oculatus
- So I waltzed right into the headquarters of the force whose commander I have now in fact killed, hilarious
- He told me to take out someone in Morthal for him, so had to boing right back to Morthal
- Turned out my target was hanging out at the mill right by Jorgen
- So I dropped into Sneak, whipped out the Bow of Shadows, and one-shotted that guy too
- Then returned to the Sanctuary and turned in the contract for Lurbuk with Nazir
- Apparently didn’t have to turn in the recurring quest from the Night Mother?
- Got another prompt to talk to the Night Mother for a contract, but didn’t bother to take another one
- Next up: fishing
- Boinged to Reachwater Rock to try to get the vampire fish I still needed, and got one on the first try 😀
- Returned to Riften and turned in the Underground Fish quest with Swims
- Got his quest for Rare Fish finally
- Then boinged to Lakeview to see if I had any of the rare fish, and also to see what I had for the feast quest for Gisli
- Boinged to the farm to check in there and pick up profits from Illia
- Spotted two dragons flying around, one Revered Dragon who promptly attacked, and one distant dragon that was probably Nahagliiv
- The Revered Dragon killed me, and I was thrown back to coming out of Lakeview
- Boinged to farm again
- Got profits from Illia and that actually unlocked a new achievement for having 100,000 gold, awesome 😀
- And on take two, the dragon took a little longer to show up, but this time I killed it
- Harvested leeks and potatoes for the crab stew
- Then boinged to Whiterun to try to get my mitts on some salt and garlic and butter
- Got butter and one salt
- Then confirmed oh yes, I would have to get garlic off a garlic braid, and I had one of those at Lakeview
- So made all three of the items for Gisli’s feast
- Boinged to Solitude to run that quest
- Did a little fishing at the Solitude Sawmill and then at Riften, to try to catch remaining needed rare fish; did not succeed at that though
- However, talked to Viriya and turned in the feast quest, then got the quest for the Dwemer fishing rod
- Also got the courier with the song about the Fisher Queen
- Then, finally, got Iona back on duty with intent to go run Dawnguard
- On the way over to Dayspring Canyon, saw a thug attacking Louis Letrush, who then killed him
- Ohhhh dear too bad so sad (and no sign of Frost, so real curious where the horse wound up)
- Proceeded onward to Dayspring Canyon, but ran into another dremora fight
- Was not able to find any dead Vigilants nearby
- But also, of note, this time I found that the dremora had attacked a noble (Adeliger)
- Could not find any sign of that noble’s Imperial escort, but shortly before Dayspring Canyon, did find the horse
- Then finally headed into the canyon
- HI AGMAER
- Reached Fort Dawnguard
- HI CELANN
- Got into the place and saw initial convo with Isran and Brother Tolan
- Agreed to help out and go check out Dimhollow Crypt
- Boinged over near there to get to the place, but overshot on first attempt
- Boinged to the burned out Hall of the Vigilants instead, and got there successfully from that spot
- Parked right outside the entrance to the cave to pick up next time
Lurbuk is surprisingly difficult to kill…
I ran into this with Harrowhark’s playthrough, as I recall, but yeah: taking out a guy just sleeping in the inn in Morthal is rather more difficult than you’d think.
It took me a few tries. What poisons I had on me weren’t enough to take him out in one go, even though I pickpocketed them onto him. And, he even woke up on the third attempt and yelled for help.
A guard showed up and tried to arrest me, so I had to bribe him to get him to fuck off. “I’m with the Guild, howsabout you fuck off and let me kill this guy?”
I can only imagine the guard suppressing a snerk behind his helmet, realizing that the Brotherhood has arrived to relieve Morthal of its shitty bard problem, and accepting my bribe on that grounds alone. For all I know, that guard could have been one of the people who put in a call to the Brotherhood in the first place! Morthal is not, after all, all that big. Lololololol.
After I got the guard to go, Lurbuk went back to sleep. So then I one-shotted him with the Bow of Shadows, and had done with it.
Takeaway from this: if I do any more Brotherhood activity, in a modded playthrough anyway, just make with the bow. Or, alternately, make damn sure I have better pickpocketing and better poisons when I come in.
Deeply amused, though, that Nazir has a line about the only good bard being a dead one. Somebody is clearly not a fan of the musical arts.
… and Morthal’s just having a bad day with mysteriously murdered citizens, apparently
It was hilarious to me that the second contract not only was from a guy in the Penitus Oculatus, but also that he sent me right back to Morthal.
Gosh, two citizens of Morthal mysteriously murdered in recent days!
Anybody checked in with the Jarl about the whereabouts of Alva?
Just a thought. 😀
After that, though, I didn’t bother to take any more contracts from Nazir, or any more contracts from the Night Mother, either. I’m pretty sure at this point that I don’t particularly enjoy running around assassinating NPCs, at least not in the vanilla version of the Brotherhood plotline.
If I ever run the Brotherhood in a modded playthrough from this point, we’ll see if my opinion changes. As of this session, though, I decided to be done with Brotherhood stuff for Finds.
Not too much to say about the fishing and the start of Dawnguard here, since all that was pretty familiar territory.
Achievements unlocked
- Golden Touch: For having 100,000 gold
Achievements count as of this post: 45.
Language commentary
Interesting terms observed:
- Korrupter Gesandter: Corrupt Agent (as he’s called in the English game) (lit. “Corrupt Envoy”)
- Vampirfisch: Vampire Fish
- Platzieren: To place
- Gislis Festmahl: Gisli’s Feast
- In Bronzenen Wassern: Beneath Bronze Waters (the quest) (lit. “In Bronze Waters”)
- Adeliger: Noble
- Beizutreten: To join (used by Agmaer when he meets you on the way in to Fort Dawnguard)
- Festung Dämmerwacht: Fort Dawnguard
- Vampir: Vampire (singular and plural!)
- Bewahrerin: Keeper (feminine, as in Keeper Carcette)
- Runtergekommene: Run-down
- Jüngsten: Recent
- Vampirangriffen: Vampire attacks
- Trübhöhlengruft: Dimhollow Crypt
- Bürschchen: Lad (used by Isran to Agmaer)
- Viel Erfolg!: Good luck! (lit. “much success!”)
Voice acting commentary
I didn’t get too far into the Dawnguard plot with this session, so I only met a few of the characters for the DLC here–Isran of course being the most significant character. His voice actor in German seemed to do a perfectly decent job of sounding like the character.
Next time
Finds-the-Way’s next post will feature a whole lot of moving the Dawnguard plot along, but also questing into Mzinchaleft for a schematic–and while I was there, picking up Mjoll the Lioness’s sword!
Screenshots






