In Which the Dragonborn Goes Hunting and Fights a Dragon Priest

Since this whole question of owning property and needing to buy and/or build and/or furnish houses is increasing Alarrah’s expenses, I didn’t have any particular quest in play last night. Instead, I bopped around various places doing bounties, so I could try to build up my stock of gold.

Highlights

• Killed a couple of giants for a bounty in Whiterun
• Got 500 extra gold for helping one of the market vendors in Whiterun
• Killed a bandit chief for a bounty in Falkreath
• Finally bought the property in Falkreath so I could begin building Lakeview Manor, and my housecarl Rayya could become its steward
• Killed a dragon at Shearpoint–and met and did not kill a dragon priest

Commentary

Bounty number one for the evening was killing a giant at a camp within walking distance of Whiterun, Bleakwind Basin–one that I’d seen frequently when going out onto the plains to hunt, in fact. I tried to get this bounty from the Steward at Dragonsreach, but apparently he doesn’t provide the “I’m looking for work” prompt? I haven’t been able to get him to trigger it.

So I got the prompt from the innkeeper at the Bannered Mare instead. And while I was in there, I also had a word with the inn bard. Because on the way in, I’d stopped to have a look at the various stalls in the market square, and wound up chatting with one of the vendors who complained that the bard had been coming on way too strong to her and she had no time for his bullshit.

Neither Alarrah or her player had any time for that bullshit either, so I cheerfully went in to go lean on the guy and get him to back off. Passed the Persuade check, which got him to realize he was being a douche and promise to stand down. This was a pleasant surprise. It was also a pleasant surprise that the vendor gave me 500 gold for the trouble. And I didn’t even have to kill the bard. 😉

Anyway, then I got a bounty from the innkeeper to go giant hunting. Took Lydia out with me for this, because usually when I go hunting I don’t need her. But for purposes of killing giants? Absolutely.

I needed her, because the thing about giant camps is that they often have two giants. While I only had to kill one to satisfy the bounty, the first time through the other one was close enough that it got pissed off and came after us. And killed me.

Second time through though we took down both giants. This also let me practice using that shiny new glass bow I have, which I’ve enchanted with a frost spell.  Lesson learned from this: even though I’m at level 28 now, when it comes to fighting giants, do it from a distance, and keep those arrows coming.

Pretty decent loot off that kill, too. Between that and the bounty, I think at that point I had enough to finally go buy property in Falkreath so I could build Lakeview Manor. So I boinged down there to take care of that.

Lakeview Manor is in a bit of a nicer area than Windstad. But like Windstad, it does have its nearby random enemies problem. In this case, bandits and necromancers. Joy oh glee! There’s even a necromancy circle just a little ways down the hill from the house, and Paul tells me that when he got this house before he always called that his “barbecue pit”. Snerk.

I killed an apprentice conjurer there when I spotted him–don’t want no necromancy going on near my new house, dammit–and also got the house built up to the same size as Windstad. Rayya caught up with me there and so I went ahead and made her steward so i could authorize her to buy supplies and such. I still need to do enough building to furnish the place, though, as well as get a weapons plaque up so I can stash the Blade of Falkreath there. I figure that if I’m going to have assorted properties by being thane of a bunch of places, it seems symbolically appropriate to put the various thane-gifted weapons and such in those properties.

(Though once I have a proper armory somewhere I am totally stashing the rest of the nifty weapons I get there.)

Bounty number two of the evening was bandit hunting, at the behest of the Steward of Falkreath, Nenya. (Side note: it continues to amuse the hell out of me that her name is Nenya, just because any self-respecting Tolkien nerd will know that Nenya is the Ring of Adamant, one of the three Elven Rings of Power, the one wielded by Galadriel and on camera in the extended edition Fellowship of the Rings film.)

These bandits were at Knifepoint Ridge, which turned out to be a very large and well-defended bandit camp by a mine. I wound up going up there alone because I couldn’t find Rayya to get her to accompany me, but that was okay–I was able to take all the bandits out myself. The bandit chief was a pretty tough fight, because she had steel plate armor, but I eventually took her out and swiped all her stuff for selling later.

Then back to Whiterun one more time for another round of selling and crafting. And somewhere in this round was when I had a guard go past me and throw off a dialogue line about seeing a dragon fly northeast, near Shearpoint.

I’d already been to Shearpoint and killed a dragon there on a recent run, but I decided to bop back up there anyway and see if I could find another one. Answer: yes. Which I promptly dispatched.

However, while searching the area for loot, I discovered two additional things I hadn’t seen the last time I was there:

1. A Word Wall, woo! \0/ This one for the Throw Voice Shout.
2. A coffin containing a dragon priest, the first one I’ve encountered in the game

And the dragon priest? YIKES.

Paul had given me a heads up about this guy, so I knew he existed, and I’d seen references to the dragon priests and their masks in general when reading up on things on the wiki.

I was not however prepared for how vicious a fight Krosis would give me. He kept throwing fire at me and moved very, very quickly, so he was extremely hard to hit. I burned through my stock of healing potions pretty fast, and finally just had to cope with running away and living to come back and kick his ass another day.

So back again to Whiterun, for one last round of loot selling, and saving for the night.

Next time

I was reminded that the Shrine of Azura is a quest I still haven’t done yet, so hey maybe I’ll take that on next!

Editing to add

3/12/2022: Reformatted this post to make it better match ones in later playthroughs.