In Which Finds-The-Way Slays an Undead General

Slowly whittling away at the remaining posts for Finds-The-Way’s playthrough in German! Eight posts after this one to go. And this one is pretty short.

Main action here is mostly familiar stuff on Solstheim, with the exception of picking up Teldryn Sero as a follower, since I’d never done that before.

Play by play

• Play date: 8/14/2024
• Session number in this run: 59
• Picked up where I left off in Raven Rock
• Checked in with Crescius in his house and showed him his ancestor’s journal
• Resolved his overall quest
• Decided to vary things up a bit and went into the Retching Netch to hire Teldryn Sero, since I never had before!
• Paid him his 500 gold and got him following me
• Headed out into the ash with him–probably, in character, to start looking for Miraak’s temple
• But my actual goal was of course to meet Captain Veleth and run Fort Frostmoth
• So killed the ash spawn for him at Old Attius Farm, and got the quest to help him out and go to the fort to take out the undead general
• On the way, stopped at Kolbjorn Barrow and had initial convo with Ralis, and gave him his initial 1,000 gold
• Proceeded to Fort Frostmoth and killed assorted ash hoppers on the way
• Reached and ran the place
• Did a truncated version of running the interior, skipped some of the side loot, but still killed all the ash spawn, outside and inside
• Got the dead guy’s letters, and the ingredients to make Elsweyr Fondue (200 year old beer and cheese wheels! Yum!)
• Got a Daedric sword in the room with Ildari’s journal
• Called up a dremora for support once Teldryn and I actually found the general
• Took him and his ash spawn out in fairly short order
• Teldryn took a pounding in the fight, though, he almost died! So I made a point of healing him after
• Arvak’d back to Raven Rock
• Checked in with Captain Veleth even though it was after hours
• Resolved the Fort Frostmoth quest, and picked up the quest to investigate the assassination threat!
• Talked to Councilor Arano and got directive to go speak to Geldis in the Retching Netch
• Got pointer to go stake out the tomb, but that got a little glitchy, see below
• Still, finally successfully talked to Tilisu and got to the next phase of the quest
• It was still early in the morning though and nobody was up
• So went to Glover’s forge and made my jewelry item to resolve the Nordic jewelry quest
• Held off at that point until next time

Commentary

Not much to cover here that I haven’t already talked about in prior playthroughs, with one exception: this being the very first time I’d ever actually recruited Teldryn Sero, the Dunmer mercenary who hangs out in the Retching Netch. I decided to vary things up a bit, since I hadn’t brought a follower to Solstheim with me, and hire that guy!

Though all things considered, I probably should have hired him in English first to have a better idea of what the hell his lines actually are. I could at least glean from his subtitles that he immediately started bitching about not liking Solstheim, LOL.

I was amused to look him up and see that he never, ever wears headgear that shows his face. Probably for the best, given that screenshots of him without it show he’s a typical fairly fugly Dunmer dude. He’d probably look a lot better running the Aesthetic Elves mod, though!

This being a mod-free playthrough, I don’t think there would have been any info available to me in-game about why Teldryn hides his face all the time? Nothing is given about it on the page for him on the UESP, at any rate. I’ll have to check out the backstory expansion mod that’s included with Tuxborn, though, and see if somebody’s come up with an interesting headcanon about this.

UESP does say that Teldryn claims to have once met Jiub, which if true would make him at least 200 years old. And if that’s true, he was very possibly around when Red Mountain blew and destroyed Vvardenfell.

HA, it’d be hilarious if he were the Nerevarine, hiding out all this time.

Meanwhile, by the time I reached Kolbjorn Barrow, Finds-The-Way was positively swimming in gold. She had right around 200,000 gold in this session. So she sure as hell wasn’t going to miss the gold spent on Teldryn’s fee, or for that matter, the gold paid to Ralis.

Once I picked up the assassination plot quest, the objective to confront Tilisu in the tomb got a little glitchy. It activated before she walked into the place!

I went outside the tomb and found her approaching, so had the usual conversation with her out there. But then she entered the tomb anyway–and still had a quest marker pointing at her. So I had to follower her back into the tomb, and specifically to the right spot, for the objective to resolve.

Language commentary

Interesting terms observed:

• Redoran-Wache: Redoran Guard
• Das Bollwerk: The Bulwark
• Dankbarkeit: Gratitude
• Niederzulassen: Settle in, establish oneself in (used by the guards when telling the player they picked the wrong town to settle)
• Der Spuckende Netch: The Retching Netch
• Mietklinge: Blade for hire, sellsword
• Schwertkämpfer: Swordsman
• Aschenbrut: Ash Spawn
• Außerst merkwürdig: Very strange
• Garnison: Garrison
• Festung Frostmotte: Fort Frostmoth
• Aschenhüpfergelee: Ash Hopper Jelly
• Aschenhüpferfleisch: Ash Hopper Meat
• Chitinplatte: Chitin Plate
• Kolbjornhügelgrab: Kolbjorn Barrow
• Horkgesichtige Feiglinge: Hork-faced cowards
• Gramfeste: Mournhold
• Finanzier: Financier
• Antiquitäten: Antiquities
• Relikte: Relics
• Spezialität: Speciality
• Aschestürme: Ash storms
• Lieferung: Delivery
• Startkapital: Starting capital
• Aschenbrutentzünder: Ash Spawn Immolator
• Daedrisches Schwert des Sammelns: Daedric Sword of Harvesting
• Eidarer Käserad: Eidar Cheese Wheel
• Knüppel des Champions: Champion’s Cudgel
• Untoter: Undead
• Heldentaten: Heroic deeds
• Ratsherr Morvayn: Councilor Morvayn
• Lebensgefahr: Mortal danger
• Dem rivalisierenden Fürstenhaus: The rival Great House (dative case, used by Adril Arano when speaking of House Hlaalu)
• Familienmitglied: Member of the family
• Rächen: To avenge
• Schlüpfrigen Schlachterfische: Slippery slaughterfish (used by Geldis Sadri to describe the Ulens)
• Ulen-Ahnengrab: Ulen Ancestral Tomb
• Verstorbenen: Deceased (as in, the dead inhabitants of a tomb)
• Einem Nicht-Dunmer: A non-Dunmer (dative case, used by Tilisu to describe me, since I’m Argonian)

Captain Veleth, in German, has the reaction “Außerst merkwürdig” when you tell him about the note you find on the ash spawn, at Old Attius Farm. I’m mostly noting this just because I like the way it sounds!

In the English game, when you first meet Ralis at Kolbjorn Barrow and get him to tell you what he’s doing there, he has a line about needing a little “kick” to start off really properly excavating the place. This is translated over to “Startkapital” in German. Presumably because “kick”, in the sense that an English speaker would associate with kickstart, doesn’t really have a German equivalent?

Also in English, Adril Arano urges you to “root out these traitors” when you agree to help him protect Councilor Morvayn. The German translation of this is a bit more intense, namely: “rottet diese Verräter mit Stumpf und Stiel aus.”

This translates back to “eradicate these traitors root and branch”. Not inappropriate sentiment-wise, to be sure–though maybe a bit premature plot-wise? At this point, Adril Arano is only asking you to investigate for him. He doesn’t actually ask you to kill anybody until you have conclusive proof.

That’s only a really minor quibble, though!

Next time

Finds-The-Way’s next post will feature taking out the Ulens, so hurray, Councilor Morvayn is saved! And Finds gets Severin Manor! But also, SURPRISE! Sleeping in the bed moved me off to the Wind Stone, so let’s get that Miraak party started, shall we?

Screenshots

No screenshots this time.