In Which Elessir Takes Lucien to Dumzbthar

Now that I’ve finished up writing about Finds-The-Way’s playthrough, time to swing back around and finish off Elessir’s! Here’s another post from his session, dating to late August 2024. Action here is on Solstheim, and not only doing Solstheim quest stuff, but also moving the personal plot of Lucien along and visiting the Dwemer ruin he was highly interested in: Dumzbthar!

So by definition, this post will contain spoilers for Lucien’s personal quest. Read or not accordingly, depending on your likelihood of choosing Lucien as a follower in a modded Skyrim run!

Some minor spoilers here as well for the Serana Dialogue Edit mod, and how it sets her up to react to events on Solstheim.

Play by play

• Play date: 8/29/2024
• Session number in this run: 54
• Picked up at Severin Manor
• Did a sleep to see if I could trigger landing at a Standing Stone; answer: yes!
• But only went to the Earth Stone, which was convenient
• No sign of Neloth at the Stone though
• Milore asked me if I felt sick, and I did indeed have Bone Break Fever, oops, so quaffed a potion to clear that up
• Sold more East Empire pendants to Fethis, then set out to go to Dumzbthar with Lucien
• Killed ice wraith en route
• Went past Abandoned Lodge, no sign of Thalmor yet
• Found Fahlbtharz, and fought exterior rieklings; Lucien had commentary about them
• Found Frossel reaver near the rieklings at Bristleback Cave
• He actually ran over to fight with the rieklings first, LOL
• Then I finally had the convo with him about his treasure, which pissed him off and made him attack me, so I took him out
• Headed up to the hill to Dumzbthar, which turned out to be very near the Stalhrim Source and White Ridge Barrow
• Exterior entrance was a lift, so took that, and started exploring the place
• Found a large sleeping area with a bunch of stone beds, each of which had a chest with loot, so got a lot of loot out of that
• Found several nooks that looked like shower stalls
• Found a mess hall where Lucien commented on what was basically a gas stove, LOL
• The place was really frigging enormous and since I got overloaded, it took some time to work my way down through it
• Found one area where the floor’s metal grille was crooked and broken, which was a nice touch
• Made it down to a crevice with pipes over it
• Made my way carefully down into that, and it led up to a couple of new doors
• They turned out to need two people to hit buttons at the same time, so Lucien and I did that
• The doors closed behind us after we went through them, and Lucien was all OH I’M SURE THIS ISN’T A PROBLEM (you sweet summer child)
• Once we got through those doors, we finally started finding hostile automatons to fight
• And a creepy voice started talking to us out of nowhere
• We then found what looked like an assembly line for automatons, and Lucien theorized that it was much, much faster than those found in other Dwemer ruins
• Lucien also threw off a few of his other Dwemer ruins lines i’d heard him give, in addition to the ones specific to this locale
• The creepy voice turned out to be the voice of the facility itself, who described that it was in charge of the automatons and communicated with them via a low level psychic field, which he then used to borrow Lucien’s voice
• However, it became rapidly apparent that the voice of the facility was not friendly
• It refused to turn off the automatons, because otherwise, how would they not be able to kill us?
• Started seeing automatons of unusual configurations as well, including one i thought was a chaurus at first
• Took a while to play through just because of course I was overloaded, and the ruin was quite large, and unfamiliar, so it took me a while to figure out how to navigate through it
• Found a pool of water in which were located some cutoff valves that Lucien theorized we could use to draw off some power from the voice
• Getting into the water was not a problem since I had a waterbreathing enchantment on one piece of armor, but it was also very hot and kept doing me small bits of damage until I got out again
• Turned out the voice addressing us was the voice of a Daedra that the Dwemer had imprisoned and forced into servitude
• And boy howdy was it pissed, particularly since the Dwemer all disappeared, and so it had had centuries to do fuck and all except control the automatons in the ruin
• We finally got to the core chamber of the place and found the mechanism the daedra was imprisoned in
• And there was an Oblivion gate down there, which is where we learned what was actually going on
• The Daedra decided it wanted my body, because by virtue of being Dragonborn, I could actually stand the strain of being a vessel for it–but of course it’d have to kill me first
• And yeaaaaah howsabout NO
• Took the thing out after some work, and at the end of it, Lucien gushed at me about researching in the place
• I asked him if this was goodbye, and he assured me it was not
• Still had a couple of unanswered questions about the place, since I found a blank lexicon and a holder to put it in, but that didn’t do anything
• Also found some soul gem shards, not to be confused with soul gem fragments, and had no obvious use for them
• So I left Lucien to it for now, and trudged very slowly out of the place with Serana
• When I got out again, Arvak’d back to Raven Rock
• Got courier with first message from Ralis
• For now though returned to Severin Manor and did inventory managing
• Got a boatload of dwarven metal ingots out of the stuff brought out of the ruin
• Leveled up to 72, took Health bump, and took Extra Pockets perk on Pickpocket
• Then went back out again
• Got cultists at Old Attius Farm and took them out
• Talked to Ralis and did initial leg of clearing draugr out of Kolbjorn
• Serana of course raised draugr, LOL
• Came back out again and gave Ralis his 2,000 gold for next round
• From there, aimed for Miraak’s temple
• Found Brodir Grove en route, and Serana got all aggro on the reavers, so we had to take them out
• Got all the loot from that camp, including Stormfang and a tasty Daedric Battleaxe of Winter
• Moved on and found Kagrumez, but did not run, yet
• Serana fell behind me as I climbed over hills to get to the temple
• Finally found the temple and started running it
• HI FREA
• Serana caught up again as soon as we entered the door into the temple
• She also threw off a reaction line about being creeped out by what was going on
• Proceeded to run the place and that was mostly as per previous playthroughs, with added Serana raising skeletons and draugr and such
• Got to the Black Book finally and Serana also reacted to that
• Finally followed Frea back to the Skaal Village
• Talked to Storn and got the next objective for the quest
• Went down and ran Haknir’s Shoal first though, and got the Deathbrand helm and the treasure map
• Also hit the nearby island with the dead peddler, and launched the netch leather armor plot too
• Serana raised the dead peddler, so I got to see him try to punch a horker, LOL
• Returned to Severin Manor
• Decided to set Enchanting to Legendary, and dropped some skill points on Alchemy
• Leveled up to 73 and took Magicka bump
• Stopped there until next time

Dumzbthar

Taking Lucien to Dumzbthar being the main point of this post, let me start by saying the place is impressive and I did enjoy exploring it. My only real quibble with it is that it felt almost too large. It took me a very long time to actually get to the part of the ruin where plot happened.

Mind you, I don’t feel necessarily that it was excessively large compared to other Dwemer ruins, even ones on Solstheim. Fahlbtharz is also pretty huge, and so is Nchardak. But that’s also kind of the problem. The island of Solstheim already had two huge Dwemer ruins on it, with bonus extra Kagrumez. So I’m not entirely convinced there was even room for another one, geographically speaking?

But that’s a quibble, really, not even something so severe as a complaint. The size of the place more nagged at me just because, as always, I got chronically overloaded with all the loot. So it made trudging through the place take a long goddamned time! And it didn’t help that Dumzbthar’s design struck me as very twisty-turny. I did a lot of backtracking, trying to find the correct route to take to get to where the plot finally happened.

Speaking of the plot, I really liked how the mod set up Dumzbthar itself being the antagonist. The facility using a low-level psychic field to talk to us was great narrative setup, not only for explaining why it could speak Tamrielic, but also for the voice to sound like Lucien! Way to explain why you’re doing your own voice work there, Joseph Russell. Well done!

And given that the Dwemer are called out in the lore as having not only telepathy, but also technological means to enhance mental communication, it tracks for me that a Dwemer facility would have the ability to scan the minds of visitors.

But wait, there’s more!

I’ll give props as well for the unusual designs of some of the automatons in the place, especially the ones that I thought at first were chaurus. Very nice work there.

I also liked the bit where I had to get into a pool to turn off some valves–but a pool where the water was actively hot, and kept doing me small amounts of damage until I got out again. Given that I was overloaded, I was in there longer than I should have been! So that did make the pool kinda uncomfortable. Which it should have been! You shouldn’t go diving into a steaming hot pool and not expect to get a little scalded.

The reveal about the nature of the voice of Dumzbthar was great. And so was the menace involved with the captured, pissed off Daedra deciding it wanted my body to live in. Very nice, very crunchy conflict.

And one more minor quibble I had with the place was finding clutter items that seemed like they ought to have a use, but didn’t: a blank lexicon and a holder to put it in, but which did nothing. And also, soul gem shards, not to be confused with soul gem fragments that are standard clutter in the rest of the game. I don’t know if these were specifically intended to be just clutter items by design, or if Lucien’s creator intends to iterate on them later and make them more interesting? If the latter, for now they’re just clutter items. So I note this as a detail for anyone interested in running Lucien as a follower.

I knew as of when Lucien bid me goodbye following the fight that this wasn’t the last I’d see of him. Still, that conversation did have a hefty degree of “aww” to it! Even for cynical Elessir.

And I do have to raise an eyebrow at how Lucien decided he wanted to stay and research the place. I mean, totally in character for him. But he was clearly not exactly thinking through the ramifications of staying in a huge and creepy Dwemer ruin all by himself. Even aside from any questions of the Daedra we’d killed being actually dead, or the risk of any of the automatons waking up again and attacking him, what about the risk of his just taking a wrong turn and falling down a shaft or something? Breaking a limb? And starving to death because he couldn’t get himself free?

Heh. Of course, the risk of his staying alone in that ruin all by himself do lead into the followup part of the plot. More on this to come.

More on Serana

The side part of interest with this session was getting more opportunities to see how the Serana dialogue edit mod I was running handled her being on Solstheim. Answer: pretty well, for its scope.

Taking her to Miraak’s temple got me opportunities to see the mod in action, as it did more borrowing of lines she uses in Dawnguard, and putting the same lines to use here. A good example of this was taking her into Miraak’s temple, where she commented about being creeped out by what was going on.

I’m pretty sure her line there was the one she normally throws about all the frozen Falmer in the chantry, just before you confront Vyrthur. And I had a nice couple of options to reply to her. I took the one that didn’t blame her for being creeped out because yep, it’s fucking creepy! And Elessir was not above admitting that.

In fact, heh, I suspect Serana may have been the only person in all of Tamriel that Elessir would have admitted that to!

Serana also reacted when I reached the Black Book, continuing the trend of her mostly just reacting to major Dragonborn plot developments, as well as the general ashy terrain of southern Solstheim. So, a bit less Serana reacting to things than I would like. But still pretty good!

She also reacted to me coming back out of the Black Book. That was a little weird, just because this was not the first Black Book she saw me do, either. I did the one in Bloodskal Barrow first, and that didn’t trigger any reaction out of her.

But I can handwave this as Serana specifically reacting to my looking like I was in pain–because Miraak’s Seekers had just kicked my ass. So that would make narrative sense.

Notable Lucien lines

Lucien, like many of us, does not really know what to make of rieklings:

All right, you little… blue… yippy thing. Can’t you just settle down? You’re really being terribly annoying.

And after patiently tromping along with me for the entirety of this playthrough, I can’t really blame Lucien for being excited when we finally make it to Dumzbthar:

This must be it. Dumzbthar. Quick, let’s get inside! I can’t wait to see what secrets it holds.

Lucien had running commentary pretty much on everything we explored in the place, like this line about the sleeping quarters:

This looks like the facility sleeping quarters. Eerie, isn’t it?

Lucien also gets excited about gas stoves! Which, to be fair, should seem pretty fucking amazing to somebody accustomed to Tamriel levels of technology:

This must be the mess hall for the Dwemer researchers. And look at that! Some kind of cooking device using… flammable gas? Ingenious!

Lucien, son, have you not learned from all the Nordic puzzle doors I’ve taken you through that stuff behind such doors tends to want to kill us?

I’ve never seen anything like it! Obviously, whatever the Dwemer were keeping here must be pretty special.

How convenient that there are two of us!

Ah, I think I see. It looks like a double locking mechanism of some kind. Both buttons need to be pressed at once.

Serana: AHEM.

Elessir and Lucien: THREE of us!

Elessir: Serana, would you like to…?

Serana: No, you go ahead. Try not to get yourselves killed.

Lucien, to Elessir: She’s not going to raise us if we get killed, is she?

Serana: I make no promises.

Meanwhile, but what about two Dwemer opening the door on a whim…?

An extra security measure, l assume. At least two Dwemer were needed to open this door, so no individual could do so on a whim.

So layered button doors? Lucien, you do remember Reachwater Rock, right? Y’know, the place where you explicitly told me you were creeped out by our intruding on it? The place with the double puzzle doors? That doesn’t strike you as possibly relevant to this situation? But okay fine, if you insist…

Looks like the same arrangement here. If you could just hit that button, the first door should close, and with a bit of luck, the second should open!

You say that like somebody who actually has any proof that centuries-old Dwemer tech is in fact going to keep working the way you expect it to:

Marvellous! Don’t panic, I’m certain it ll open again for us on the way out.

Once Dumzbthar actually talks to us, Lucien’s enthusiasm cracks just a bit:

Did you hear that? I don’t suppose it could have been the wind? Underground wind? That talks?

Lucien compares the Animoculotory in Dumzbthar with other ones he’s seen:

This must be the Animoculotory! It’s where they put automatons together. Although… I understood they typically managed one a day. These assembly lines, on the other hand… They suggest this place was much, much faster. But how?

Dumzbthar introduces itself, and Lucien immediately starts interrogating it:

Are you talking about the Dwemer? They built you? But how? What actually are you? And how do you even speak our language?

And here we go with the conversation that demonstrated that we were not in friendly territory. At this point Elessir’s all “See? SEE? There’s always things trying to kill us behind puzzle doors. This is how this works.”

Lucien: Uh, Mr Dumbthar, sir? You mentioned can communicate with the automatons. Would you awfully mind shutting them down for us?

Dumzbthar: But my dear Master Flavius, if I shut them down, however would they kill you?

And in category I Like The Sound of This Even Less, WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK:

Dumzbthar: I must say, you’re doing remarkably well. Yes… this one will make an excellent vessel.

Lucien: I don’t like the sound of that…

Dumzbthar does not take kindly to Lucien discovering that turning off some valves beneath scalding water will cut him off from some power sources, and this is what Lucien points out in reply:

Hey, you’re the one trying to kill us. Don’t blame me for pointing out the obvious weaknesses in your system.

Lucien, son, this was a yes/no question:

Interesting question! The machine is damaged beyond operability, yes, but the entity inside? I suspect that’s harder to kill.

You’re saying he can’t cause us any more trouble because he’s dead, right?

Either way, I don’t think he’ll be causing us any more trouble now. He can’t.

Sooooo, what then? You want me to leave you alone in the large creepy Dwemer ruin? That seems dangerous, what happens if you break a leg or something?

Oh, no, not goodbye, of course not! Travelling with you has been one of the best experiences of my life, and I don’t want to siop yet!

I could point out that Dead Man’s Drink, while it does have the disadvantage of being in Falkreath, is nonetheless filled with actual people, whereas this place is filled with wrecked automatons. One of whom just tried to kill me. And you’d still be in here all by yourself. I’m no researcher but maybe, just maybe, you might want to get some help in here?

So when I’m not with you, I can come back here and continue my research! It certainly beats Dead Man’s Drink, doesn’t i?

Next time

Elessir’s next post will continue the Solstheim action, with a bunch of cleansing of All-Maker stones and a bunch of side questing as well.

Screenshots